NIPC Law

Jane Lambert Martin Howe QC   Ahmet Erol v Sumaira Javaid   BL O/253/17 12 June 2017 The Registered Designs Act 1949  was passed the same year as the Patents Act 1949. S.85 (2)  of the Patents Act 1949 established a Patents Appeal Tribunal ("PAT") which heard appeals from hearing officers. There was a corresponding provision under s.28  of the Registered Designs Act 1949 which established a Registered Designs Appeal Tribunal ("RDAT"). The PAT was abolished by the Patents Act 1977 but the RDAT trundled on until the Intellectual Property Act 2014 came into force (see Jane Lambert  How the Intellectual Property Act 2014 changes British Registered Design Law   19 June 2014 JD Supra). S.10 (4) of that Act repealed s.28 of the Registered Designs Act 1949 and with it the RDAT.  S.10 (2) of the 2014 Act inserted new sections 27A and 27B into the 1949 Act which gave those who wished to appeal against a decision of a hearing o...

As everyone knows, copyright restricts the acts listed in s.16 (1) of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988  ( "CDPA" ) in relation to a work in which copyright subsists ( "a copyright work" ). Those acts include copying, issuing copies, renting, lending or communicating the work to the public etc. Anyone who does any of those acts without the owner's licence  infringes that copyright. He or she may be sued or in an extreme case prosecuted. Clearly, if you want to broadcast, perform or otherwise make use of a copyright work it is a good idea to get a licence. As all those lovely artists, choreographers, composers. dramatists, novelists, poets, song writers and other authors need to live it is only right that they get paid a reasonable fee for their trouble. But therein lies the rub because what may seem reasonable to you and me as consumers may not feel reasonable to an artist in his garret or, more importantly, his agent in his BMW. As I argued...

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...