NIPC Law

Jane Lambert On 12 Feb 2018 I shall address a seminar entitled the  Implications of Brexit on Intellectual Property Law which will be hosted by Queen Mary University of London Centre for Commercial Law Studies at 67-69 Lincoln's Inn Fields (see Jane Lambert  I mplications of Brexit on Intellectual Property Law   19 Jan 2018 NIPC News). The topic that I have chosen is "What if anything can be salvaged from the Unified Patent Court Agreement?" The reason I have chosen that topic is that it seems increasingly unlikely that the Unified Patent Court ( "UPC" ) will open its doors before 23:00 on 29 March 2019 which is "exit day" within the meaning of clause 14 (1) of the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill (HL Bill 79). I say that for two reasons. The first is that art 89 (1) of the Agreement on a Unified Patent Court provides that that agreement will come into force "the first day of the fourth month after the deposit of the thirteenth instr...

Rt. Hon. Theresa May MP Author: Home office Source: Wikipedia Creative Commons Licence Jane Lambert In her Lancaster House speech of the 17 Jan 2017 (the transcript of which can be found on The Independent's website ) the Prime Minister acknowledged that "Britain might at times have been seen as an awkward member state" However, there is one policy upon which we have always been impeccably  communautaire   That   has been the scheme to establish a single European patent for the territories of all the EU member states with a single European patent court. We were one of the few parties to ratify the Community Patent Convention  in 1975 shortly after we joined the EEC. Ever since then our government has participated constructively in deliberations and negotiations both for a Community patent within the framework of the EU (see Community Patent  on the Eur-Lex website) and a European patent litigation agreement ("EPLA") as an optional...