NIPC Law

Colworth House, Unilever's Research and Development Facility Author  Lecomte99     Copyright waived by the author     Source Wikipedia Colworth House Jane Lambert Supreme Court (Lady Hale, Lord Reed, Lord Hodge, Lady Black and Lord Kitchin) Shanks v Unilever Plc   [2019] UKSC 45 (23 Oct 2019) Nowadays most commercially successful inventions in the United Kingdom are made by scientists, engineers or other technically qualified people working for companies, research institutes or universities at places like Colworth House in Bedfordshire.  Most of those scientists, engineers and technicians are paid very well for their work and many of them receive side benefits like company cars, private health insurance and stock options. Employees' Inventions It is for that reason that s.39 (1) of the Patents Acr 1977 provides: "Notwithstanding anything in any rule of law, an invention made by an employee shall, as between him and h...

Jane Lambert Patents Court (Mr Justice Atnold)   Allergan, Inc and another v Aspire Pharma Ltd [2019] EWHC 1085 (Pat) (3 May 2019)  Allergan Inc  is the proprietor of European patent EP1753434  for an enhanced bimatoprost ophthalmic solution which its English subsidiary, Allergan Ltd. exploits   by marketing a product containing 0.1 mg/ml (0.01%) bimatoprost for ophthalmic administration for the treatment of glaucoma under the trade mark Lumigan 01 mg/ml. Aspire Pharma Ltd and Accord Healthcare Ltd have obtained marketing authorizations to market generic versions of Lumigan 0.1 mg/ml which they do not dispute would infringe the patent. They contend that the patent is invalid on the ground of obviousness or, alternatively insufficiency. S.72 (1) of the Patents Act 1977 provides that the Patents or Intellectual Property Enterprise Court or the Comptroller-General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks may revoke a patent for an i...

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...

The New Metrocab J ane Lambert Court of Appeal (Lord Justices Kitchin and Floyd)    The London Taxi Corporation Ltd (t/a The London Taxi Company) v Frazer-Nash Research Ltd and Another   [2017] EWCA Civ 1729 (1 Nov 2017) In  The London Taxi Corporation Ltd (t/a The London Taxi Company) v Frazer-Nash Research Ltd and Another [2016] EWHC 52 (Ch) (20 Jan 2016) Mr Justice Arnold had to decide whether the shape of a London taxi could be registered as a British or European Union trade mark and, if it could, whether such a mark could be infringed by the manufacture and sale of a taxi that looks like the vehicle in the picture above. It should be remembered that art 3 of  Directive (EU) 2015/2436 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 December 2015 to approximate the laws of the Member States relating to trade marks provides that a trade mark may consist of any signs including the shape of goods providing that such signs...

Author Ltak Licence  Creative Commons-Attribution Share Alike 3.0 unported Jane Lambert Patents Court (Mr Justice Arnold)  Parainen Pearl Shipping Ltd and Others v Kristian Gerhard Jebsen Skipsrederi AS and Others [2017] EWHC 2570 (Pat) (18 Oct 2017)  This was a dispute between a company that had been incorporated in the Marshall Islands  and its Cypriot subsidiaries on the one hand and three companies that had been incorporated in Norway on the other over whether the Patents Court had jurisdiction to hear an action for a declaration of non-infringement relating to the bulk discharge system of a Bahamas registered cement carrier that was alleged to infringe the British, Finnish and Swedish designations of European patent number 2 032 426 "System and method for discharge of bulk material from a ship".   Particulars of the ship together with photographs of her can be found on the Marine Traffic  website. The Dispute The...

Rolls Building In   Swiss Style Claims: Warner-Lambert Companv Actavis   25 Jan 2015 I explained that Warner-Lambert LLC had a patent for a drug called pregabalin for treating epilepsy and GAD (generalized anxiety disorder). That patent expired in 2013 although the monopoly was extended for a short time by a supplementary protection certificate which has now lapsed. Warner-Lambert discovered a new use for pregabalin in the treatment of neuropathic pain for which it was granted a new patent. Actavis sought the revocation of the new patent on grounds of obviousness and insufficiency and applied for permission to market pregabalin for the treatment of epilepsy and GAD. The case that I discussed in my case note was an unsuccessful attempt by Warner-Lambert to impose conditions on the sale of pregabilin in the UK (see   Warner -Lambert Company, LLC v Actavis Group Ptc EHF and others [2015] EWHC 72 (Pat)). The action came on for trial before Mr Justice A...