NIPC Law

I discussed HM Government's proposal to introduce a new small claims track for the Patents County Court from the beginning of October 2012 in "The New Small IP Claims Jurisdiction"  (5 March 2012) and "Small IP Claims"  (Chambers website 8 May 2012). We now have the rules for the new court. Overview Rule 10 of The Civil Procedure (Amendment No.2) Rules 2012 (S! 2012 No 2208) amends Part 63 of the Civil Procedure Rules as follows: "Amendments to the Civil Procedure Rules 1998 10. In Part 63— (a) In the table of contents, after the entry for rule 63.26, insert— 'Allocation to the small claims track ........... Rule 63.27 Extent to which rules in this Part apply to small claims ........... Rule 63.28;' (b) in rule 63.1 (3), for 'Claims', substitute 'Save as provided in rule 63.27, claims'; and (c) after rule 63.26 , insert— 'Allocation to the small claims track 63.27.—(1) A claim started in or transferred to a p...

One of the many innovations of the Companies Act 2006   is a right under s.69  to object to the incorporation of a company in a name that is: (a)   the same as a name associated with the person raising the objection in which the objector has goodwill; or (b)   so similar to such a name that its use in the United Kingdom would be likely to mislead by suggesting a connection between the company and the objector.   Examples of cases where those circumstances occurred include  Glaxo Plc v. Glaxowellcome Limited  [1996] FSR 388 and  Direct Line Group Limited v. Direct Line Estate Agency  [1997] FSR 374.   In Glaxo, for instance ,. the defendants incorporated Glaxowellcome shortly after a merger between Glaxo and the Wellcome group had been announced in the hope of extracting a ransom for the name from the new holding company.  Those cases anticipated the practice of domain name squatting which led to a number of expensive trade mark infringement and passing off actions such as  Pitman Trai...