NIPC Law

Jane Lambert Martin Howe QC   Ahmet Erol v Sumaira Javaid   BL O/253/17 12 June 2017 The Registered Designs Act 1949  was passed the same year as the Patents Act 1949. S.85 (2)  of the Patents Act 1949 established a Patents Appeal Tribunal ("PAT") which heard appeals from hearing officers. There was a corresponding provision under s.28  of the Registered Designs Act 1949 which established a Registered Designs Appeal Tribunal ("RDAT"). The PAT was abolished by the Patents Act 1977 but the RDAT trundled on until the Intellectual Property Act 2014 came into force (see Jane Lambert  How the Intellectual Property Act 2014 changes British Registered Design Law   19 June 2014 JD Supra). S.10 (4) of that Act repealed s.28 of the Registered Designs Act 1949 and with it the RDAT.  S.10 (2) of the 2014 Act inserted new sections 27A and 27B into the 1949 Act which gave those who wished to appeal against a decision of a hearing o...

Whitehall Photo T. B. Murray Source Wikipedia Creative Commons Licence Whatever happens on 23 June 2016 HMG will have to make rules to implement the  Agreement on a Unified Patent Court  in the United Kingdom. The reason I say that is that the Agreement comes into force after 13 countries, including France, Germany and the UK, ratify the Agreement. Nine countries including France have already done so (see the European Council's website ).  Parliament has enacted primary legislation to enable the Secretary of State to give effect to the Agreement in the UK by order in council (see  S,17 of the Intellectual Property Act 2014  inserting a new s.88A and s.88B into the  Patents Act 1977 ). As it would take time to negotiate an exit agreement under art 50 (2) of the Treaty on European Union  the Agreement will almost certainly come into force while the UK is still an EU member. There would have to be some sort of s...

Jane Lambert In DKH Retail Ltd v H. Young (Operations) Ltd   the claimant, which claimed design rights and unregistered Community design in relation to the front portion and hood of a range of gilets sold under the product name Academy  under the Superdry brand  sued the defendant for importing and selling a range of Glaisdale gilets under the Animal brand . The defendant raised the usual defences on subsistence, ownership and infringement.  This case is interesting because it is the first judicial analysis of the effect of the deletion by s.1 (1) of the Intellectual Property Act 2014 of the words "any aspect of" from the definition of "design" in s.213 (2) of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. I had discussed that deletion in "How the Intellectual Property Act 2014 will change British Unregistered Design Right Law"   11 June 2014 and "The Intellectual Property Bill 2013"   28 May 2013.  Even though ...

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...

As I said in How the Intellectual Property Act 2014 changes British Patent Law   21 June 2014 JD Supra, the most important provision of the Intellectual Property Act 2014  is s.17  which inserts a new s.88A into the Patents Act 1977. That section confers power on the Secretary of State to make provision in the UK for the Agreement on a Unified Patent Court . Why is that agreement important? It is because art 1 establishes a court common to almost all the countries of the European Union including the UK for the settlement of disputes relating to European patents and European patents with unitary effect ("Unitary patents").  That court will be known as the Unified Patent Court ("UPC") and it will consist of a Court of First Instance and a Court of Appeal. The Court of Appeal will sit in Luxembourg but the Court of First Instance will have a central division with Paris with sections in London and Munich. In addition there will be regional and local divisi...