NIPC Law

Latvia from Space Author  S eaWiFS Project, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, and ORBIMAGE Public Domain   Source     Jane Lambert Court of Appeal (Lords Justices Arnold and Nugee and Lady Justice Falk) Playtech Software Ltd v Realtime SIA and another [2025] EWCA Civ 1472 (21 Nov 2025) This was an appeal by Realtime SIA ("Realtime") and Igors Veliks ("Mr Veliks") against Mr Justice Thompsell's order of 24 Jan 2025 dismissing their challenge to the jurisdiction of the courts of England and Wales in respect of claims for alleged breach of confidence and copyright infringement made by  Playtech Software Ltd ("Playtech") for the reasons given in his judgment in Playtech Software Ltd and another v Games Global Ltd and others [2024] EWHC 3264 (Ch) of18 Dec 2024. The Parties Playtech is a member of a group of companies that designs, develops and supplies online gambling games and associated software.   Another member of the group is a Latvian com...

  Jane Lambert Chancery Division (Iain Purvis QC) Semtech Corporation and others v Lacuna Space Ltd and others [2021] EWHC 1143 (Pat) (5 May 2021) This was a challenge to the court's jurisdiction by two former employees of the third claimant under art 22.1 of Regulation (EU) No 1215/2012 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 12 December 2012 on jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters OJ L 351, 20.12.2012, p. 1–32 ("the Brussels Recast Regulation) .  That article provides that an employer may bring proceedings against its employee only in the courts of the Member State in which the employee is domiciled.  The application came on before Mr Iain Purvis QC sitting as a deputy judge of the High Court on 30 April 2021.  At para [75] of his judgment in  S emtech Corporation and others v Lacuna Space Ltd and other s [2021] EWHC 1143 (Pat) (5 May 2021), the learned deputy judge found that he had...

By Tkarcher - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=21882537 Jane Lambert Chancery Division  (Mr Justice Trower)   Celgard, LLC v Shenzhen Senior Technology Material Co Ltd  [2020] EWHC 2072 (Ch) (30 July 2020) This was an application by Celgard LLC ("Celgard") for an interim injunction to restrain Shenzhen Senior Technology Material Co Ltd ("Senior") from placing its battery separators onto the UK market or importing them into the United Kingdom on the ground that such marketing and importation would infringe Celgard's rights under the Trade Secrets Directive ( 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 (Text with EEA relevance ) OJ L 157, 15.6.2016, p. 1–18) and at common law.  Celgard al...

Jane Lambert Patents Court (Mr Justice  Mann)    Illumina, Inc. and Another v TDL Genetics Ltd and Others [2019] EWHC 79 (Pat) (22 Jan 2019)   CPR 31.6 requires a party to litigation to disclose to his or her opponent not only the documents on which he or she relies but also the documents which adversely affect his or her own case or that of another party, support the case of another party or any document that he or she is obliged to disclose by a relevant practice direction.  Sometimes such a document contains a trade secret or other confidential information .  When that happens the court is presented with what Lord Justice Buckley called in Warner-Lambert Co. v Glaxo Laboratories Ltd.  [1975] RPC 354, 356 "a balance or conflict of expedients." In that case, the defendant asserted that the documents that the claimant sought to inspect contained "secrets of considerable commercial value".  The learned lord justice continued: ...

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...

Prof. Tanya Aplin I have been a fan of Professor Tanya Aplin  for some time, originally because of her transformation of Gurry on Breach of Confidence  and more recently because of her part in the Submission to the UK IPO on the issue of criminal sanctions for the deliberate copying of designs  by Sir Robin Jacob and the Professors of IP law at the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Bournemouth. Like Francis Gurry , the Director-General of the WIPO, she is an Australian which is almost a qualification in itself as the courts of that island continent are a laboratory for the development of the common law positively fizzing with bright ideas some good and others not so good. Professor Aplin was guest of honour at the Intellectual Property Bar Association garden party on Monday which I attended with Robert Griffiths QC , the IPBA's latest recruit, and our pupil Nicola Strachan . Before we could taste our pudding metaphorically speak...