NIPC Law

ICANN Head Office in Los Angeles Photo  Coolcaesar Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported Licence Source  Wikipedia Jane Lambert A domain name is a mnemonic for an internet address, that is to say a long string of numbers that identifies a website, mailbox or other resource. Since they are used to identify businesses, government departments, international agencies, universities and other institutions they can be very valuable assets.  They can be registered for one or more years for a few pounds, euro or dollars without extensive checks or formalities on a first come first served basis. Those who apply to register domain names have to warrant and represent to their domain name registrar that they are entitled to register those names in their registration agreements.  They are also required to agree to refer any complaint by a trade mark or other intellectual property right owner that they are not so entitled to a form of altern...

The Intellectual Property Bill has passed through the Commons and now awaits royal assent. Although much attention has focused on clause 13 of the Bill which will create a new offence of unauthorized copying of a registered or registered Community design in the course of business the legislation makes a number of useful changes to registered and unregistered designs and patents law. I have written a number of articles on the Bill for this blog: "The Intellectual Property Bill" 26 May 2013 "Correspondence with my MP on Clause 13 of the Intellectual Property Bill"  29 May 2013, and "Clause 13 of the Intellectual Property Bill will probably go through. What next?"  20 Dec 2013. I also made written submissions on the Bill as it passed through committee in the House of Commons. My colleague, Thomas Dillon, has also analysed the Bill though he has tended to welcome clause 13 (see Thomas Dillon "UK: Intellectual Property Bill"  28...

Being transsexual is not perhaps the best career move for a middle aged intellectual property barrister. Not even for one such as I with an unconventional practice. I thought long and hard about deleting this blog and starting again on Typepad in my new name. But Movable Type costs money and I'm from Yorkshire. Anyway, everybody who knows me professionally knows of my change of name and gender. I am not ashamed of myself or of the posts that I contributed under my old name. So more of the same? Not quite. I will still post case notes, summaries of important legislation, bits of gossip here and there from the robing room, LES meeting and the like info about local IP seminars and other events. However, I will try to lighten it up a bit with some funny stories. Plenty of those about in real life if you live in the setting for "Last of the Summer Wine " and practise the same profession as Rumpole .