NIPC Law

Author  Ciencias Españolas  Licence CC BY-SA 3.0   Source Wikipedia Commons   Jane Lambert Patents Court (Mr Justice Mellor)    Hill v Touchlight Genetics Ltd and others [2024] EWHC 533 (Pat) (08 March 2024) The High Court has power under s.70 (1) of the Senior Courts Act 1981 to call in the aid of one or more assessors specially qualified, and hear and dispose of the cause or matter wholly or partially with their assistance if it thinks it expedient to do so. Subsection (3) of the same section requires rules of court to make provision for the appointment of scientific advisers to assist the Patents Court in proceedings under the Patents Act 1977 and for regulating the functions of such advisers. S.70 is implemented by CPR 35.15 .  Para (2) of that rule mandates the assessor to assist the court in dealing with a matter in which the assessor has skill and experience. He or she is obliged by CPR 35. 15 (3) to take such part in the proceed...

Author Judicial Office UK Licence CC BY-SA 4.0   Source Wikimedia Commons   Jane Lambert Patents Court (Mr Justice Zacaroli) Parsons v Convatec Lt d [2023] EWHC 1535 (Pat) (26 June 2023) This was an application by an employer to strike out or summarily dismiss part of its employee's claim for compensation under s.40 of the Patents Act 1977.  S.7 (2) of the Patents Act 1977 states that a patent for an invention may be granted primarily to the inventor except where a rule of law or contract entitles someone else to claim the invention.  One such exception is provided by s.39  which entitles employers to claim their employees' inventions in certain circumstances.  Most employees who are expected to invent something in the course of their employment enjoy generous salaries and benefits but there are some inventions that are so valuable to the employer that it is just to reward the employee with something extra.  S.40 makes provision for such re...

© 2021 Jane Lambert: All rights reserved Jane Lambert Intellectual Property Enterprise Court (Mr John Kimbell QC)   Vimage Products Ltd. v Data Candy Ltd and others   [2022] EWHC 606 (IOEC) (18 March 2022_ Sometimes, through no fault of its own, a claimant joins someone who was not responsible for the alleged wrongdoing as a defendant.    That is what appears to have happened in  Vimage Products Ltd v Data Candy Ltd and others [2022] EWHC 606 (IPEC) when Vimage Products Ltd. sued Data Candy Ltd and its director, Joanne Roper, as defendants to an action for design right infringement and passing off.  Vimage joined them as defendants because they appeared to be the owners of a website that advertised allegedly infringing articles. In their defence, the defendants denied infringement and identified Lenken Ltd. as the owner of the website.  Vimage and Lenken tried unsuccessfully to resolve their dispute without recourse to litigation.  Vimage applied ...

Manchester Civil Justice Centre Photo Michaelmazr   Licence CC BY-SA 4.0   S ource Wikimedia Commons   Jane Lambert Since the 1 Oct 2010, intellectual property claims of £500,000 or less that can be tried in no more than 2 days have been eligible to proceed in what was previously the Patents County Court and is now the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court ("IPEC)  (see New Patents County Court Rules   31 Oct 2010). The advantages of litigating in IPEC are that parties know from an early stage precisely when their trial will take place and judgment be delivered and their maximum liability for the other side's costs. The timetable is strictly enforced and the work that has to be done on case preparation is controlled. Shorter Trials Scheme Some of those advantages are now available for claims for more than £500,000 in the Business and Property Courts that have been issued on or after 1 Oct 2015 and can be tried in 4 days or less under a regime known as "the Shor...

Author Aero Icarus Licence CC BY-SA 2.0   Source Wikipedia ATR 42 J ane Lambert Chancery Division (Mr Justice Nugee) easyGroup Ltd. v    Empresa Aerea De Servicios y Facilitation Logistica Integral SA (Easyfly SA) and others [2020] EWHC 40 (Ch) (14 Jan 2020) This was an action by easyGroup Ltd . against the Colombian airline Empresa Aerea de Servicios y Facilitation Logistica Integral SA which trades in the name or style of EasyFly  and its president Alfonso Avila Velandia for trade mark infringement, passing off and conspiracy. easyGroup complained that EastFly's website supplied air tickets to British travellers under the EasyFly sign. It also sought to join the French manufacturer, ATR Aircraft , as a third defendant. ATR had flown aircraft in EasyFly's livery on test flights around France and on a delivery mission through Spanish airspace. It had also published a press release announcing its sale of aircraft to EasyFly at the Farnboroug...

Interior of the Royal Courts of Justice Author Aurelien Guichard Licence Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 2.0 Generic Source Wikipedi a Jane Lambert Just over 6 years ago the Patents County Court Small Claims Track was launched (see my article Soon there will be a Remedy if Someone steals your Idea   19 Sept 2012 NIPC Inventors Club). I was very enthusiastic about the new court and wrote a lot about it as you can see from the bibliography in Small IP Claims   31 Jan 2017 NIPC News).  The reason for my enthusiasm was that it seemed to make IP litigation affordable for thousands of start-ups and other small businesses that felt that the law provided no effective protection for their investments in branding, design, technology and creativity  because enforcement  of their rights was too expensive and too uncertain.  Before the Civil Procedure Rules came into force in 1999 claims often began with an application for inter...

The Rolls Building Author Basher Eyre Licence Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 2.0 generic Source Wikipedia Jane Lambert Chancery Division (Master Clark) Massimo Osti SRL v Global Design and Innovation Ltd and another [2018] EWHC 2263 (Ch) (30 Aug 2018) This was an application  by the claimant to set aside an order made by the court on its own initiative under CPR 3.3 to transfer a claim for an EU wide injunction, unpaid royalties and other relief for EU trade mark infringement and breach of contract and the defendants' counterclaim for a declaration that the mark is invalid from the Chancery Division to the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court ("IPEC") . The Significance of the Application The Chancery Division is one of three Divisions of the High Court of Justice established by s.5 (1) of the Senior Courts Act 1981.  S.61 (1)  and para 1 (i) of Sched. 1 of that Act assign patents, trade marks, registered designs, copyrig...

Manchester Civil Justice Centre Author Skip88 Licence  Copyright waived by the author Source  Wikipedia Jane Lambert According to TaylorWessing's Patent Map , England and Wales remains the most expensive country in Europe in which to contest a patent action. The European Patent Office reports that the UK lay 9th in the number of European patent applications that were filed in 2017 trailing not just the USA, Japan, China and Germany which are considerably bigger in population and GDP than the UK but France, South Korea, Switzerland and the Netherlands that are the same size or smaller (see  European patent filings per country of origin ). It seems likely that the UK's relatively lacklustre performance in the number of European patent applications is connected to the high cost of enforcement.  I have plenty of anecdotal evidence from my practice, patent clinics and inventors' clubs to support that contention. One of the reason...

Leeds Law Courts (c) 2005 Jane Lambert: all rights reserved Jane Lambert Until the Civil Procedure Rules ( "CPR" ) came into force in 1999 solicitors specializing in intellectual property law heralded litigation with an ultimatum called a letter before action . Written in haughty if not insulting terms and accompanied by a humiliating form of undertakings, they were intended to shock the recipient into submission. They rarely achieved the desired result. As often as not they were simply ignored.  Occasionally, they were answered by a defiant response.  As a result, a lot of actions were launched that could easily have been settled without recourse to litigation. As I wrote in Dispute Resolution   all that was supposed to change with the introduction of Pre-Action Protocols and the Practice Direction-Pre-Action Conduct and Protocols : "The objective of the Practice Direction and the Pre-Action Protocols is to enable the parties to identify the ...