NIPC Law

Tom Duke - UK Attaché in China Jane Lambert On 19 Sept 2017 I chaired two seminars on IP rights in China for businesses, lawyers and patent and trade mark attorneys in Yorkshire. One took place in Leeds in the studios of Northern Ballet and Phoenix Dance Theatre  and the other in the Barnsley Business and Innovation Centre . Both were attended by leaders in business, education and the arts including, in particular, Phoenix's artistic director,  Sharon Watson , who was about to visit China with a view to bringing her company to that country. The main speaker at those talks was Tom Duke who is our IP attaché to China and Hong Kong.  Tom is one of four officials who work with the Department for International Trade (DIT) and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) to provide support for UK businesses seeking advice on local IP matters.  The other three are Christabel Koh  in Singapore who covers South East Asia, Angelica Garcia in Brazil and Shilpi Mehta Nanda

Florence Foster Jenkins Author George Grantham Bain Jane Lambert HH Judge Hacon Martin  and Another v Kogan     [2017] EWHC 2927 (IPEC) (22 Nov 2017) Florence Foster Jenkins  was described by Stephen Pile as "the world's worst opera singer." In 2016 a film was made about her life starring Meryl Street as the singer and Hugh Grant her husband. The film was very popular.  Streep was nominated for an Oscar for her performance.  The movie grossed receipts of US$44.3 million by 16 Oct 2016 according to Wikipedia. The screenplay was credited to Nicholas Martin who is a film and TV script writer.  While he was writing the script Mr Martin was living with Julia Kogan who is an opera singer.  There was no dispute hat they had discussed the project during that time.   Ms Kogan claimed to have contributed to the script to the extent that she was entitled to be regarded as a joint author.   Mr Martin and his company sued Ms Kogan for a declaratio

Jane Lambert Court of Appeal (Lady Justice Gloster and Lord Justices Patten and Richards)  Caspian Pizza Ltd and Others v Shah and Anothe r [2017] EWCA Civ 1874 (23 Nov 2017)   In  Caspian Pizza Ltd and Others v Shah and Another [2015] EWHC 3567 (IPEC) (9 Dec 2015) Judge Hacon dismissed a claim for trade mark infringement and passing off. The trade marks relied upon were the device mark that appears above and the word mark CASPIAN. The judge declared the word mark invalid because the defendants had run a restaurant called "CASPIAN" in another part of the country which constituted an "earlier right" within the meaning of s.5 (4) of the Trade Marks Act 1994. However, he did not declare the device mark invalid on the ground that the defendants had no goodwill in the running chef logo.   I blogged about the case in  Caspian Pizza Ltd and Others v Shah and Another   on 24 Jan 2016. The claimants appealed to the Court of Appeal against the invalidation of the

Author  Ssolbergj Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International Licence Source  Wikipedia Jane Lambert IPEC (Mr Recorder Campbell), Scomadi Ltd and Another v RA Engineering Co. Ltd and Others [2017] EWHC 2658 (IPEC) (27 Oct 2017) On 19 Sept 2017, I chaired seminars in the studios of Northern Ballet in Leeds and at the Barnsley Business and Innovation Centre in South Yorkshire at which Tom Duke, our intellectual property attaché in Beijing, spoke on  “Succeeding in China – How to mitigate IP risk” as part of a China IP Roadshow (see Jane Lambert Meet our IP Attaché to China   21 July 2017 IP Yorkshire). One of the reasons why Tom made that tour is that an increasing number of British IP owners contract with manufacturers in China and other countries where production costs are lower than in the UK to make goods for them under licence. Often such arrangements work very well but sometimes they can go very badly wrong.   An Example of a

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 are capable of distingu

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 patent had been granted

Author Hydragyrum Reproduced with kind permission of the copyright owner Source Wikipedia Jane Lambert Chancery Division (Mr Justice Snowden)  Banner Universal Motion Pictures Ltd v Endemol Shine Group Ltd and others   [2017] EWHC 2600 (Ch) In Denmark there was once a game show called "Minute Winner" which was devised by a Mr Derek Banner. Mr Banner claimed to have assigned his rights in the format for the game show to a company that he had set up called Banner Universal Motion Pictures Ltd. ( "BUMP" ). The rights  that BUMP claims to have acquired were essentially copyright in a document entitled "MINUTE WINNER Mini-format Game show Daily or weekly show. Or short one minute between main programs. Morning, Evening or Afternoon program. One minute, or 30 minutes with several winnings" and the benefit of an obligation of confidence under Swedish and English trade secrecy laws. The obligation of confidence is s