NIPC Law

Author J onas Magnus Lystad   Licence CC BY-SA 4.0    Source Wikipedia Commons   Jane Lambert Chancery Division (Iain Purvis KC) Unicorn Studio Inc v Veronese SpAS    [2024] EWHC 1098 (Ch) (21 June 2024) This appeal highlights the importance of timely applications under CPR52.19 (4)  in appeals to the Court from the Trade Marks Registry. A party who wishes to appeal against a decision of a hearing officer has the choice under s.76 (2) of the Trade Marks Act 1994 of appealing to the Appointed Person or the Chancery Division of the High Court of Justice.  S.77 (1) defines an "Appointed Person" as a person appointed by the Lord Chancellor to hear appeals under the Trade Marks Act 1994.  Appointed persons tend to be senior members of the Intellectual Property Bar, solicitors specializing in that area of the law or distinguished academic lawyers. There are advantages and disadvantages of appealing to the Appointed Person rather than the Court....

C ontains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0 . Jane Lambert The CEO of the Intellectual Property Office, who is known as "the registrar" in trade mark proceedings pursuant to s.62 of the Trade Marks Act 1994, exercises judicial as well as executive functions.  He or she adjudicates disputes between applicants for trade marks and examiners known as ex parte proceedings. The registrar also decides disputes between applicants or registered proprietors and third parties that are known as  inter pates proceedings". The registrar's judicial functions are performed on his or her behalf by officials known as "hearing officers" though they are not mentioned in the legislation.  I discussed ex parte hearings in If the examiner says "no" - ex parte hearings in the Trade Marks Registry   in NIPC London on 10 Aug 2015 and inter partes hearings in Oppositions in the IPO's Trade Mark Registry   in the same publicati...

Jane Lambert Immediately to the west of China, the Republic of Kazakhstan straddles Europe and Asia. It was therefore logical for the President of China to announce the project now known as the Belt Road Initiative ("QBRI") to build new road, rail, power and telecommunications links between China and Europe on a visit to that country in 2013 (see  President Xi Jinping delivers speech at Nazarbayev University   9 Sept 2013 YouTube). The construction and maintenance of those transport and communications links across Kazakhstan will require enormous investment from China and other countries.  It is likely that disputes will arise from time to time and a forum will be required for their resolution. The Supreme People's Court of China offers The China International Commercial Court  at X'ian and Shenzhen but the proceedings are in Chinese before Chinese judges and are determined in accordance with Chinese law.  Not every foreign investor, contractor o...

Jane Lambert Patents Court (Mr Justice Birss)  Conversant Wireless Licensing SARL v Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd and others [2020] EWHC 256 (Pat) (10 Feb 2020 This was an application by the claimant, Conversant Wireless Licensing SARL  for disclosure of the licence agreements and assignments relating to 3G and 4G patents that had been entered by the defendants, Huawei Technologies Co Ltd., ZTE (UK) Limited and their British subsidiaries. Substantially the same application had been made to His Honour Judge Hacon at the case management conference in the action which took place in July 2019. The later application was heard by Mr Justice Birss who delivered judgment in  Conversant Wireless Licensing SARL v Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd and others [2020] EWHC 256 (Pat) on 10 Feb 2020. The reference to the CMC in the transcript of Mr Justice Birss's judgment is [2009] EWHC 1982 (Pat) but I think that must be a misprint for [2019]. Judge Hacon refused Conv...

Author Goodtiming8871   Licence CC BY-SA 4.0   Source Wikipedia Cellular Network  Jane Lambert Patents Court (Mr Justice Birss)  Conversant Wireless Licensing SARL v Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd and other s [2020] EWHC 14 (Pat) (8 Jan 2020) This was a patent infringement claim by  Conversant Wireless Licensing SARL  against Huawei Technologies Co Ltd .,  ZTE Corporation  and their respective British subsidiaries.  The patents alleged to have been infringed are European patents (UK) 1 878 177  ("177"), 3 267 722  ("722") and 3 197 206  ("206"). Conversant had declared those patents to be essential to certain 3G and 4G standards. It argued that manufacturing, distributing or marketing items that met those standards without its licence would necessarily infringe the patents. The defendants contended that the patents were invalid on various grounds and denied that the patents were essential to t...

Jane Lambert A rather more interesting Brexit Briefing this month  because the UK has ratified the Unified Patent Court Agreement.  The article sets out the background to ratification and considers whether it will make a difference.  Also discussed are the proposals to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland and indications that HMG will accept the backstop arrangements for birder checks between Great Britain and both parts of the island of Ireland set out in the draft withdrawal agreement notwithstanding political and constitutional challenges to which that could lead. Finally, there is the agenda for discussions on the future partnership between the UK and EU after Brexit which would include services and some encouraging remarks about the city of London from Monsieur Barnier at the Eurofi High Level Seminar in Sofia on 26 April 2018. More

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...

In    Jarden Consumer Solutions (Europe) Ltd v SEB SA and Another [2014] EWHC 445 (Pat) (28 Feb 2014) Jarden Consumer Solutions (Europe) Ltd ( "Jarden" )  sued SEB SA ( "SEB" )  for the revocation of its  European patent number 2.085,003  ( "the patent" ) for deep fryer with automatic fat coating. SEB counterclaimed for infringement of the patent by importing and selling  the Breville Halo Health fryer . The action came on for trial before Mr Justice Arnold who found that 3 of the claims of the patent were invalid but 3 others were valid and had been infringed. Jarden appealed against the judge's construction of the patent and his finding of infringement. The appeal was heard by Lord Justices Vos and Burnett and Sir Timothy Lloyd in  Jarden Consumer Solutions (Europe) Ltd v SEB SA and Another [2014] EWCA Civ 1629 (17 Dec 2014), The Patent The invention  for which the patent was granted is was summarized by Lord Justice Vos at par...

There are often a lot of cases brought by the fashion trade or toy or novelty manufacturers in the run up to Christmas. There don't seem to have been all that many this year judging by the Chancery Division cause list and the Patent Court and Intellectual Property Enterprise Court ( "IPEC" ) diaries. However, there has been a case about ice cream or rather ice cream vans. In Whitby Specialist Vehicles Ltd. v Yorkshire v Yorkshire Specialist Vehicles Ltd   [2014] EWHC 4242 (Pat) the biggest manufacturer of ice cream vans in the UK sued one of its competitors or unregistered Community design, design right and trade mark infringement. The trial took place in the Patents Court on the 10, 12-14, 20 Nov 2014 and judgment was delivered on the 17 Dec 2014. Usually actions of this kind proceed in IPEC where trials are limited to two days and costs are capped at £50,000 for the trial on liability and £25,000 for ...