NIPC Law

Topshop, Leeds Photo Wikipedia In  Fenty and Others v Arcadia Group Brands Ltd and another     [2013] EWHC 2310 (Ch), [2013] WLR(D) 310 Mr Justice Birss gave judgment to Robyn Rihanna Fenty (better known as Rihanna ) and her corporate licensing companies against Top Shop for selling a t-shirt that reproduced a photo of the singer. The claim was brought not for infringement of copyright since the owner of the copyright in the photograph had licensed the reproduction of his work but for passing off. Rihanna and her companies had claimed that the t-shirt misrepresented authorization or approval of the manufacture and distribution of the garments and that such misrepresentation damaged her commercial activities. I wrote about the case in Passing off - Fenty v Topshop   10 Sept 2013 and readers are referred  to that note for an appreciation of the judgment. A lot of people were surprised by Mr Justice Birss's decision including me t...

Jane Lambert On 14 May 2014 the Intellectual Property Bill received royal assent. The Act made some far reaching changes in patents, registered design and unregistered design right law which I summarized in "Reflections on the Intellectual Property Act 2014"    7 June 2014   4-5 IP Tech and discussed in detail in " How the Intellectual Property Act 2014 changes British Patent Law"   21 June 2014 JD Supra, "How the Intellectual Property Act 2014 changes British Registered Design Law"   19 June 2014 JD Supra and "How the Intellectual Property Act 2014 will change British Unregistered Design Right Law"   11 June 2014 JD Supra 11 June 2014. On 28 Aug 2014 Lady Neville-Rolfe , Minister for Intellectual Property, signed  The Intellectual Property Act 2014 (Commencement No. 3 and Transitional Provisions) Order 2014  which will bring many of the provisions of the Act into force. Commencement Art 3 of the Order provides that most of the...

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...