NIPC Law

  Jane Lambert Since 6 April 2021 Practice Direction 57AC Practice Direction 57AC - Trial Witness Statements in the Business and Property Courts  has regulated the form and content of witness statements for use in trials in the Business and Property Courts.  In  Greencastle MM LLP v Payne and other s [2022] EWHC 438 (IPEC) (13 Jan 2022), Mr Justice Fancourt withdrew permission for the service of the claimant's witness statements for a trial that was due to come on in less than a month's time on the ground that they failed to comply with the Practice Direction.   In that case, there was time to serve a replacement witness statement and his lordship gave the claimant a week to do that but the courts have power to impose a wide range of sanctions including striking out non-compliant statements. I discussed that case and PD57AC in Preparing Witness Statements for Use in Trials in IP Actions: Greencastle v Payne   on 7 May 2022.   I made...

Site of the London Section and UK Division of the Unified Patent Court Aldgate Tower | Location Flythrough from J2 Agency on Vimeo . On 28 Jan 2016 I shall give a talk to the CIPA Merseyside Meeting  entitled Preparing for the UPC. I will give another presentation in my chambers on 4 Feb 2016 entitled  Unitary Patent and Unified Patent Court . The reason I shall give those talks is that the Unified Patent Court  ( "the UPC" ) is likely to come into being in the next few months which will in turn enable the European Patent Office  to grant its first European patents with unitary effect ( "unitary patents" ) for the territories of those countries that ratify the Agreement on a Unified Patent Court of 19 Feb 2013 ( "the UPC Agreement" ), When will the UPC come into being? Art 89 (1) of the UPC Agreement provides that it will come into force: "on 1 January 2014 or on the first day of the fourth month after the deposit of the thirteenth inst...