NIPC Law

  Jane Lambert Chancery Division (Mr Justice Rajah)   Illiquidx Ltd v Altana Wealth Ltd and others [2025] EWHC 299 (Ch) (13 Feb 2025) This was a claim for breach of contract and confidence and trade secrets and copyright infringement,    The Parties The claimant was Illiquidx Ltd, ("IX")  a company that describes itself as "an innovative independent financial services boutique specialised in illiquid markets, which caters to institutional, professional and high net worth investors."  Its activities focus on sales, trading and advice,  One of the markets in which it claims expertise is the sovereign debt of Venezuela , a country that has laboured under international sanctions for many years and has recently defaulted on its debt. The first and second defendants are Altana Wealth Ltd ("Altana") and Lee Robinson ("Mr Robinson") Altana's founder, controlling shareholder and chief investment officer. According to its website, Altana seeks uni...

The Intellectual Property Office Crown Copyright Reproduced with kind permission of the IPO Jane Lambert On 16 Dec 2015 the President of the European Parliament and the President of the European Council signed  Directive (EU) 2015/2436 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 December 2015 to approximate the laws of the Member States relating to trade marks (Text with EEA relevance) OJ L 336, 23.12.2015, p. 1–26 ("the directive").  Art 55 of the directive repeals  Directive 2008/95/EC  with effect from 15 Jan 2019 while art 54 requires member states including the UK to transpose arts 3 to 6, 8 to 14, 16, 17 and 18, 22 to 39, 41 and 43 to 50 into their laws by 14 January 2019. The legislation that implements art 54 in the United Kingdom is a statutory instrument, namely The Trade Marks Regulations 2018 (SI 2018 No 825 ). These regulations were made on 9 July 2018 and come into force on 14 Jan 2019. There are 54 of them arrange...

Jane Lambert In  Implementing the Unitary Patent in the UK   22 Feb 2016 I discussed the consultation on the implementation of the Unified Patent Court Agreement  in the legal systems of the United Kingdom. The consultation document, which was entitled  Technical Review and Call for Evidence on Secondary Legislation Implementing the Agreement on a Unified Patent Court and EU Regulations Establishing the Unitary Patent , contained a draft statutory instrument upon which the public's views were canvassed. I discussed the responses to that consultation and the government's reply. The government has now published a draft statutory instrument known as  The Patents (European Patent with Unitary Effect and Unified Patent Court) Order 2016  which will come into effect on the date of entry into force of the Agreement on a Unified Patent Court. The Draft Order The draft order consists of three articles: Art 1  concerns citation, the ent...

Lord Younger, Former Minister for IP Crown Copyright, Open Government Licence In Digital Opportunity, A Review of Intellectual Property and Growth   Professor Ian Hargreaves made 10 recommendations for IP policy which I discussed at length in " IP Policy: Does Hargreaves say Anything New?"  24 June 2011. Some of those recommendations required primary legislation. Others did not.  As I said in my article, Hargreaves was not the first review of IP policy in recent years and most of the previous ones had been left to gather dust.   I suspected the same would happen to Hargreaves. Implementation of Hargreaves To my surprise and delight, Hargreaves's recommendations were accepted broadly by HM Government ( "HMG" ) (see  "The Government Response to the Hargreaves Review of Intellectual Property and Growth" Aug 2011).  Not only that but HMG actually started to consult on the recommendations and even to implement some of those that do not r...