NIPC Law

Chartreuse Author Jarv Licence Free Art Licence  Source Wikimedia Commons Jane Lambert Patents subsist for 20 years, copyrights for the life of the author plus 70 years but the obligation neither to disclose nor make use of business or technical information that is disclosed in confidence can last indefinitely.  The recipe for Chartreuse is a case in point.  That distinctive liqueur has been emulated and occasionally counterfeited but never replicated. All members of the World Trade Organization are obliged to protect undisclosed information from unauthorized use and disclosure by art 39 of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights ("TRIPS") but different countries including different EU member states discharge that obligation in different ways. Such differences affect the functioning of the internal market.  To minimize those differences the European Council adopted the trade secrets directive (Dir...

The adoption by the Council and European Parliament of Directive (EU) 2016/943 of 8 June 2016 on the protection of undisclosed know-how and business information (trade secrets) against their unlawful acquisition, use and disclosure (OJ 15.6.2016 L 157/1) ( "the Trade Secrets Directive" ) seems to have been overlooked in the furore over Brexit. The directive lays down rules on the protection against the unlawful acquisition, use and disclosure of trade secrets and is due to be implemented by 9 June 2018. As the negotiation of a withdrawal agreement is likely to take some time and our incoming prime minister seems to be in no hurry to begin such negotiations there is every chance that the UK will still be in the EU by that date. Even though we are on the way out of the EU I hope we implement the Trade Secrets Directive for two reasons. The first is that it is an opportunity to codify our trade secrets law. Something that has already been done in the USA where 47 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 ...