NIPC Law

Author  Basher Eyre #   Lixnxw  CC BY-SA 2. 0 Jane Lambert Patents Court (Mr Justice Mellor)  Koninklijke Philips N.V. v Xiaomi Inc and others [2021] EWHC 1124 (Pat) (26 April 2021) On 21 Oct 2020 Koninklijke Philips N.V issued patent infringement proceedings against Xiaomi Inc and its subsidiaries in the UK, Cayman Islands and Hong Kong. Phillips claimed that the patents that the Xiaomi companies are alleged to have infringed are essential to a standard for the operation of 3G and 4G mobile phone networks for which it has undertaken to grant licences.  Phillips sought a declaration that the terms upon which it grants licences are FRAND, that is to say fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory As all the defendants except the second are outside the jurisdiction, Phillips needed the court's permission to serve them. It applied to Mr Justice Mann on 26 Oct 2020 who granted such leave to Phillips as well as other relief.  The second defendant, Xia...

Mark Twain 1835-1910 Source Wikipedia Jane Lambert "James Ross Clemens, a cousin of mine, was seriously ill two or three weeks ago in London, but is well now. The report of my illness grew out of his illness; the report of my death was an exaggeration." (Mark Twain) The last time I wrote about the Unified Patent Court and unitary patent  I was pessimistic on whether the United Kingdom could remain a party to the Unified Patent Court Agreement  after 29 May 2019 and also  on whether that agreement could survive the UK's departure (see What, if anything, can be salvaged from the UPC Agreement?   26 Jan 2018). On balance I am still pessimistic but I have not yet given up hope on either score. There are four reasons for not giving up hope completely all of which have arisen since my last article:- The Privy Council made  The Unified Patent Court (Immunities and Privileges) Order 2018  SI 1988 No 184 on 8 Feb 2018 which clears t...

Partial View of the Internet Author  The Opte Project Source  Wikipedia Creative Commons Licence Whenever you apply to register or to renew the registration of, a generic top-level domain name such as one ending in ".com", ".org" or ".biz" you represent and warrant to the registrar that: (a) the statements that you make in your agreement with the registrar are complete and accurate; (b) the registration of the domain name will not to your knowledge, infringe upon or otherwise violate the rights of any third party; (c) you are not registering the domain name for an unlawful purpose; and (d) you will not knowingly use the domain name in violation of any applicable laws or regulations. It is your responsibility and not the registrar's to determine whether your domain name registration infringes or violates someone else's rights. What Rights might be violated or infringed? These are usually registered trade ma...

Compared to Germany, France, the Netherlands and Switzerland we don't do very well in the European patent application stakes but there are two large European countries that do even worse than us, namely Spain and Italy. According to the European Patent Office there were 4,088 patent applications from Italy in 2010 and 1,436 from Spain compared to 27,354 from Germany, 9,530 from France, 6,742 from Switzerland, 5,957 from the Netherlands and 5,402 from the United Kingdom. Most people in the United Kingdom who have an opinion on the subject believe that a European patent for the whole European Union would be a very good thing. At page 25 of his report , Professor Hargreaves recommended that the UK "should attach the highest immediate priority to achieving a unified EU patent court and EU patent system, which promises significant economic benefits to UK business" which recommendation the government has accepted. While we may not be good Europeans in every respect we have...