NIPC Law

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...

In Yeda Research and Development Company Ltd v. Rhone-Poulenc Rorer International Holdings Inc and Others   [2007] Bus LR 1796, [2007] BusLR 1796, [2008] 1 All ER 425, [2007] UKHL 43 Lord Hoffmann described s.7 (2) and (3) of the Patents Act 1977  as "an exhaustive code for determining who is entitled to the grant of a patent." For determining entitlement to the grant maybe because s.32 (3) of the Act provides that "Notwithstanding anything in subsection (2)(b) above, no notice of any trust, whether express, implied or constructive, shall be entered in the register and the comptroller shall not be affected by any such notice."  But not necessarily to ownership because s.30 (1) states that patents and patent applications are personal property and sub-section (3) adds that they may vest by operation of law in the same way as any other personal property. `Disputes over equitable interests in patents or patent applications are fairly rare but they can arose in cir...

Jane Lambert In Cosmetic Warriors Ltd and Another v amazon.co.uk Ltd and Another [2014] EWHC 181 Mr John Baldwin QC, sitting as a judge of the High Court, had to decide whether causing advertising  to appear on an an Internet user's screen for products that competed with those of the claimants whenever  the user entered the claimants' trade mark into a search box amounted to an infringement of the claimants' mark. The Parties The claimants ( "Lush" ) manufacture and supply cosmetics under the Lush brand. They are well known for their colourful soaps and bath bombs.   The first named claimant is the registered proprietor, and the second its licensee, of Community trade mark number 01388313  ( "the CTM" ) under which the word LUSH is registered for "Perfumes; bath preparations; non-medicated toilet preparations; cosmetic preparations; lotions, powders and creams all for use on the skin; dentifrices; depilatory preparations; de...

The Royal Mail's Privatization was too cautious according to the National Audit Office. Will Vince Cable ask too much for the shares of IPO Plc? Ever since the announcement by Viscount Younger of Leckie  that the Intellectual Property Office  is to be privatized, there has been intense speculation in the City as to what the price that the shares will be offered to the public upon the agency's privatization. Originally it was rumoured that the price would be 255p but following the National Audit Office's criticism of the Royal Mail Privatization  analysts now believe that it could be set very much higher. A figure of 375p has been suggested by some analysts, especially after the IPO's staff received tempting offers from the Bogof hedge fund. According to the South Wales Argus  and the Western Mail there has been a rush of enquiries for top of the range models at Sytner the luxury car distributor for Newport.  Jewellers and pubs in the ...