NIPC Law

Author Ashte   Licence CC BY-SA 3.0  Source  Wikipedia "Trilfinders " Jane Lambert Intellectual Property Enterprise Court (Judge Hacon)   Trailfinders Ltd v Travel Counsellors Ltd  and other s [2020] EWHC 591 (IPEC) (12 March 2020) This is the first case that I have seen in which the Trade Secrets Directive ( Directive (EU) 2016/943 of 8 June 2016 on the protection of undisclosed know-how and business information (trade secrets) against their unlawful acquisition, use and disclosure (OJ 15.6.2016 L 157/1)  has been considered by an English judge. I have written quite a lot about that Directive and I have always taken the view that it creates new rights and obligations while leaving the law of confidence more or less intact (see Jane Lambert The Trade Secrets Directive 7 July 2020 NIPC Law). In   Trailfinders Ltd v Travel Counsellors Ltd and others  [2020] EWHC 591 His Honour Judge Hacon quoted in full the first 7 articles of t...

Author   Scott Foresman Jane Lambert Chancery Division (Mr Justice Arnold) Freshasia Foods Ltd v Jing Lu    [2019] EWHC 638 (Ch) 20 March 2019 This was a claim by an employer against its former employee for breach of restrictive covenants in his contract of employment, breach of confidence and infringement of copyright and database right.  I have already mentioned the facts of this dispute in Restrictive Covenants - Freshasia Foods Ltd v Jing Lu   11 Jan 2019.  On that occasion, Mr Daniel Alexander QC had to consider the claimant's application for an interim injunction to restrain those alleged breaches and infringements until judgment in the action or further order.  On 7, 8 and 11 March 2019, this action came on before Mr Justice Arnold for trial. The Facts As  I set out the basic facts and the covenants relied upon in my previous case note, there is no need for me to repeat them  Only two witnesses gave evidence...

In Transposing the Trade Secrets Directive into English Law: Confidentiality Agreements   5 Feb 2018 I advised that it would be prudent to ensure that non-confidentiality agreements and clauses complied with  Directive (EU) 2016/943 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 8 June 2016 on the protection of undisclosed know-how and business information (trade secrets) against their unlawful acquisition, use and disclosure  (the trade secrets directive) as well as the law of confidence. I gave more specific advice in Trade Secrecy Law changes Tomorrow - check your NDA, Standard Terms and other Agreements   8 June 2018 NIPC Inventors Club and Checking your Confidentiality Clauses and Agreements for Compliance with the Trade Secrets Directive   27 June 2018 NIPC News. I have now received my first sets of instructions to draft and review confidentiality or non-disclosure agreements in the light of the trade secrets directive.  I have applied what ...

J ane Lambert Art 19 (1) of  Directive (EU) 2016/943 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 8 June 2016 on the protection of undisclosed know-how and business information (trade secrets) against their unlawful acquisition, use and disclosure ("the trade secrets directive") requires each and every member state of the EU (including the UK for the time being) to  bring into force the laws, regulations and administrative provisions necessary to comply with that directive by 9 June 2018.  Accordingly, Mr  Sam Gyimah MP, Minister of State at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, has signed The Trade Secrets (Enforcement, etc.) Regulations  SI 2018 No 597 ("the regulations") which will come into force on that day. Overview of the Regulations The regulations so not purport to transpose the whole directive into English law. The statutory instrument consists of 19 regulations most of which relate to time limits, court proc...

Chartreuse Author Jarv Licence Free Art Licence  Source Wikimedia Commons Jane Lambert Patents subsist for 20 years, copyrights for the life of the author plus 70 years but the obligation neither to disclose nor make use of business or technical information that is disclosed in confidence can last indefinitely.  The recipe for Chartreuse is a case in point.  That distinctive liqueur has been emulated and occasionally counterfeited but never replicated. All members of the World Trade Organization are obliged to protect undisclosed information from unauthorized use and disclosure by art 39 of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights ("TRIPS") but different countries including different EU member states discharge that obligation in different ways. Such differences affect the functioning of the internal market.  To minimize those differences the European Council adopted the trade secrets directive (Dir...

The adoption by the Council and European Parliament of Directive (EU) 2016/943 of 8 June 2016 on the protection of undisclosed know-how and business information (trade secrets) against their unlawful acquisition, use and disclosure (OJ 15.6.2016 L 157/1) ( "the Trade Secrets Directive" ) seems to have been overlooked in the furore over Brexit. The directive lays down rules on the protection against the unlawful acquisition, use and disclosure of trade secrets and is due to be implemented by 9 June 2018. As the negotiation of a withdrawal agreement is likely to take some time and our incoming prime minister seems to be in no hurry to begin such negotiations there is every chance that the UK will still be in the EU by that date. Even though we are on the way out of the EU I hope we implement the Trade Secrets Directive for two reasons. The first is that it is an opportunity to codify our trade secrets law. Something that has already been done in the USA where 47 s...