NIPC Law

Standard YouTube Licence Jane Lambert It is not often that intellectual property is discussed at a party conference.  While public attention was focused on the Supreme Court's decision in  R (Miller) v The Prime Minister  [2019] UKSC 41, the leader of the opposition made this very interesting commitment in his  speech  to the Labour Party conference: "We will redesign the system to serve public health – not private wealth – using compulsory licensing to secure generic versions of patented medicines. We’ll tell the drugs companies that if they want public research funding then they’ll have to make their drugs affordable for all. And we will create a new publicly owned generic drugs manufacturer to supply cheaper medicines to our NHS saving our health service money and saving lives. We are the party that created the NHS. Only Labour can be trusted with its future." He made that commitment after talking about the child in the video above.  According t...

Jane Lambert In anticipation of our departure from the European Union. Her Majesty's government and businesses in the United Kingdom have been exploring the possibility of developing new markets for British goods and services overseas. Only this week, the Prime Minister visited Saudi Arabia and Jordan (see  Prime Minister's visit to Saudi Arabia and Jordan: April 2017   4 April 2017 HMG's website) and the Chancellor of the Exchequer was in India as part of the 9th UK-India Economic and Financial Dialogue (see  UK-India economic and trade relations to take centre stage on two-day visit   4 April 2017 HMG's website). One of the advantages of trading within the EU is that the legal systems of the member states have been harmonized over the years and supplemented with a growing body of Union law. This is as true of intellectual property  as of everything else with the result that the legal protection of intellectual assets  in any of the...

in "Bilateral Investment Treaties: Claiming Compensation from Foreign Governments under Bilateral Investment Treaties for failing to provide adequate IP Protection"   27 July 2013 I mentioned a possible claim by the US company Eli Lilly & Co. against the Canadian government under Chapter II of the agreement between the US, Canadian and Mexican governments establishing the North America Free Trade Area ( "NAFTA" ) for compensation for the invalidation of its Canadian patents by the courts of Canada. Eli Lilly claims that the invalidation of those patents is tantamount to expropriation which is contrary to art 1110 (1) of NAFTA. Lawyers acting for Eli Lilly have now filed a notice of arbitration  demanding that their claim be referred to arbitration under art 3 of the UNCITRAL  Arbitration Rules  before a tribunal consisting of three arbitrators, one appointed by each of the parties and the third presiding member to be appointed by agreement of the appoint...