NIPC Law

Author Billreid   Licence CC BY-SA 3.0 Deed   Source Wikimedia Commons   Jane Lambert Puter House, Court of Session (Lord Braid) D & M Winchester Ltd. v Coleburn Distillery Ltd    [2023] ScotCS CSOH_66, [2023] CSOH 66 This was an appeal by D & M Winchester Ltd. ("Winchester") from the decision of Mark Bryant on behalf of the Registrar of Trade Marks in Re COLEBURN trade mark D & M Winchester Ltd, v Coleburn Distillers Ltd .  BL O/923/22 29 Oct 2022 under  s76 (2)  of the Trade Marks Act 1994.   According to para [11] of the judgment, this was only the second appeal to the Court of Session from the Trade Marks Registry under that provision. The first had been    CCHG Ltd t/a Vaporized v Vapouriz Ltd 2017] ScotCS CSOH_100, 2017 SLT 907. Proceedings in the Trade Marks Registry Winchester had applied to register the word COLEBURN as a UK trade mark for various goods and services in classes 32, 33, 39, 40. 41, 43 a...

Author dun_deagh   Licence CC BY-SA 2.0   Source Wikipedia Scotland Jane Lambert Shortly before the Scottish independence referendum, I wrote  What would an independent Scottish government do about Intellectual Property?   on 10 Sept 2014 and  More on Scotland and Intellectual Property   on 13 Sept 2014.  As Scotland approaches elections in which the question of secession from the United Kingdom will again be an issue, it is now appropriate to reconsider what should be the intellectual property policy of a separate Scotland. In 2014 the section on intellectual property in the Scottish government's white paper Scotland's Future  consisting of 4 short paragraphs of which only the first was of any relevance.  I was not particularly impressed with it and I said so at the time.  Having said that, credit should be given to the Scottish government for at least publishing a white paper on independence because there was nothing like that on the ...

Scotland's position in the British Isles, Europe and the World Source Wikipedia In "What would an independent Scottish government do about Intellectual Property?"  I discussed what the Scottish government said it would do about intellectual property if Scotland seceded from the United Kingdom. Today I will consider what the white paper did not say. The Current Situation Scotland like the rest of the UK protects intellectual assets (brands, designs, technology and works of art and literature) by a bundle of laws some of which derive from statute such as patents, copyrights and trade marks, some from European Union regulations such as Community designs and trade marks, and some such as confidentiality and passing off from common law. Some of those rights have to be registered with the Intellectual Property Office in Newport, others with the Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market ( "OHIM ) and European patents wit...

In view of recent opinion polls, I have taken another look at page 102 of the Scottish Government's white paper Scotland's Future . That contains a section headed "Intellectual Property" which consists of 4 paragraphs though only the first sets out any policy. The second is concerned with the Scottish Arbitration Centre , the third is on immigration and the fourth is on a joint venture between Visit Scotland and the Walt Disney Company and the exposition of Scottish food and drink in Florida. So what is the policy? I reproduce the first paragraph of the section on IP in full: "We will ensure continuity of the legal framework for protecting intellectual property rights. Independence will also allow Scotland to offer a simpler and cheaper, more business-friendly model than the current UK system, which is bureaucratic and expensive, especially for small firms. The UK is one of the few EU countries which does not offer a scheme that covers the bas...

An interesting little domain name case that is curious in several respects: first, that it was brought in the courts at all rather than before an administrative panel appointed by one of the UDRP (Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy) dispute resolution service providers ; secondly, that it was brought in England when none of the parties appears to have anything to do with England, thirdly, that it was brought in the Technology and Construction Court which is part of the Queen’s Bench Division rather than the Chancery Division or even the Patents County Court; and fourthly, the claimant’s cause of action. The Facts In Lifestyle Management Ltd. v Frater [2010] EWHC 3258 (TCC) (10 Dec 2010) the claimants were companies registered in Kenya and the British Virgin Islands while the defendant was in Scotland. The claimants have a website at www.offshorelsm.com which indicates that they provide services “for the international investor and the professional expatriate”. Their tradi...

This decision of Lord Turnbull in EFH Technologies Ltd. and another v Reytium Technology FZC and another [2010] ScotCS CSOH_143 (29 Oct 2010) highlights differences between the procedures in Scotland for obtaining the equivalent of interim injunctive relief and those of the rest of the United Kingdom. This was an application for an interim interdict (the equivalent of an interim injunction) to restrain the defender (defendant) from manufacturing, distributing or selling a product called NaturAD Shrimp Treat. This is used to prevent freshly caught prawns from turning black and unsightly. The pursuer (claimant) alleged that NaturAD Shrimp Treat was a copy of its own product called Prawnfresh. The pursuer's product had not been patented - though a patent application had been filed in December 2009 several years after Prawnfresh had first been marketed. The pursuer therefore had to rely on the law of confidence - again notwithstanding that the product had been in the stream o...

Despite 300 years of political union and until recently a common legislature there remain striking differences between the laws of Scotland and those of the rest of the UK. Occasionally these come to light. A case that highlights them dramatically came before M Wise QC sitting as a temporary (presumably deputy) judge on Friday. This was the sort of case that still comes before chancery interim applications judges from time to time and before Universal Thermosensors Ltd v Hibben [1992] 1 WLR 840 was commonplace. A high tech company engaged in dimensional control and laser scanning services to the oil and gas industries suspected that one of its former directors had made off with some of its trade secrets. It took steps to recover them. Had the case happened in England the employer might have applied for a search order under CPR Part 25 . In Scotland the equivalent procedure appears to be to petition for the appointment of a silk as a "Commissioner" to search for and take al...