NIPC Law

For several months the "Patents Court Guide" link on the Justice Ministry website led not to a guide to the  practice of the Patents Court but to a guide to the new practice in the Patents County Court. Between the 23 April 1999 and the 30 Sept 2010 that would not have mattered because the rules and practice directions for the Patents Court and the Patents County Court were essentially the same. Since the 1 Oct 2010 the practices of the Patents Court and Patents County Court have diverged once more and there is now a small claims track in the Patents County Court where the claim for pecuniary relief (damages or profits) is less than £5,000. For more information on those developments, read "The New County Court Rules" 31 Oct 2010 and "Patents County Court - The New Small Claims Track Rules" 30 Sept 2012. We now have a plethora of new practice guides: The Patents Court Guide  The Patents County Court Guide , and Guide to the Patents County Court Smal...

Kate Storey Many thanks for your interest in Guernsey's innovative image rights legislation. Your blog gives me the opportunity to highlight the benefits of having Guernsey registered image rights if you are a personality based outside Guernsey, anywhere in the world. By 'personality' it is meant the personality of any individual, corporate entity or fictional character, or a group or double act, whether alive/in existence or deceased/dissolved within 100 years prior to the date of application (in this latter regard, think of the continued commercial significance of Elvis, Michael Jackson and Marilyn Monroe). The Guernsey legislation will be of interest to those in the public eye, or those at the beginning of their careers who anticipate being well known in the future, in a wide or relevant sector of the public in any part of the world. The below-listed benefits are extracted from an article I co-authored, which is due to be published in the Entertainment Law Review lat...

Guernsey Letter Box Author Alan Ford Jane Lambert Guernsey is a tiny island in the English Channel with a population of 66,000 and a land area of 63 square kilometres. As you can see from the picture above, it has blue pillar boxes and also, so I am told, blue phone boxes. It is all that is left of the Duchy of Normandy which was lost to France by King John.  It has its own language called  Guernésiais  which is spoken by over 1,000 people (mainly OAPs) though English is the language of business, government and everyday life. For me the most interesting thing about Guernsey is that ut has its own intellectual property law which I last discussed two years ago in "Guernsey's Patent Law" .   This is made possible by  The Intellectual Property (Enabling Provisions) (Bailiwick of Guernsey) Law, 2004 . S.1 of that statute provides: "The States may by Ordinance make such provision as they think fit in relation to the law concerning intellectual property; and any s...

In " Samsung v Apple : "Be you never so high ....."  2 Nov 2012 I discussed the hearing of Samsung's complaint that Apple had failed to comply with the Court of Appeal's publicity order.   The terms of that order and Apple's purported compliance with it are to be found at  " Apple v Samsung - the Appeal" 26 Oct 2012. On the 2 Nov 2012 I promised to analyse the transcript should it ever be published. The Court of. Appeal gave its reasons for the order that I had previously discussed in  Samsung Electronics (UK) Ltd v Apple Inc (No. 3)  [2012] EWCA Civ 1430 (9 Nov 2012). I apologize for the 6 week delay between their publication and this analysis but my readers will learn very shortly that I have not exactly been idle during this time. Samsung objected to Samsung's notice on the following grounds: First it argued that it was not open to Apple to break up the text ordered by the court by adding in the middle of it matter that had not been o...

Last Christmastide I blogged HH Judge Pelling's decision in  Bailey and another v Graham and Others [2011] EWHC 3098 (Ch) (25 Nov 2011) in "Is there any IP in Recipes? Reflections on the Reggae Reggae Case"  5 Jan 2012. I shall return to the theme this Christmastide to blog the appeal (or rather application for permission to appeal) in  Bailey and Another v Graham (aka "Levi Roots") and Others [2012] EWCA Civ 1469. This application came on before Sir Andrew Moritt, Chancellor and Lord Justices Longmore and Davis on the 16 Nov 2012. The first defendant Keith Valentine Graham is best known to the public as Levi Roots ,  He appeared on the TV programme "Dragons Den"  to promote his jerk sauce where he attracted £50,000 of investment.  Upon the insistence of his backers he incorporated the third defendant, Roots Reggae Reggae Sauce Ltd, which in turn licensed   G Costa & Co Ltd to make and distribute his sauce in accordance with his recipe, ...

In Starbucks (HK) Ltd and Others v British Sky Broadcasting Group Plc and Others [2012] EWHC 3074 (Ch) (2 Nov 2012) a group of Hong Kong-based broadcasting, media and telecommunications companies headed by PCCW Ltd. ( "PCCW" ) sued the well-known group of broadcasting and telecommunications companies that operate under the Sky sign   for infringement of Starbruck (HK) Ltd's Community trade mark number 4504891 and passing off. The CTM was as follows: It was registered for a variety of goods and services in classes 9, 35, 38, 41 and 42, including "telecommunication services; … telecommunication of information (web pages), computer programs and data; … radio and television communication services; … television broadcasting services; broadcasting and transmission of radio and television programmes; cable television broadcasting; … transmission of music, films, interactive programmes, videos, electronic computer games". The proceedings we...

Two actions came before before Mr. Recorder Purvis in  Mainetti (UK) Ltd v Hangerlogic UK Limited [2012] EWPCC 42: a claim by Mainetti (UK) Limited ( "Mainetti" ) that Hangerlogic UK Limited ( "Hangerlogic" ) had infringed its three registered designs for various clothes hangers and a counterclaim by Hangerlogic for the revocation of those design registrations: and a. claim by Hangerlogic for a declaration that a modified range of garment hangers did not infringe Mainetti's registered designs and a counterclaim by Mainetti for infringement.of those registered designs. The recorder found for Mainetti in both sets of proceedings. The Registered Designs Mainetti's design registrations were as follows: Design number 2080944 for a garment hanger registered as of 5 Feb 1999: a 'clip hanger' used to suspend trousers, shorts and skirts from two clips ( "the clip design" ); Design number 2060713 for a garment hanger registered as o...

In Apple v Samsung: the Appeal   I discussed the notice that Apple was ordered to display on its British website and the words that it actually displayed.  Many people I spoke to (especially those who own Apple phones and tablets) thought that notice was very clever and marvelled at the spin that Apple had put on bad news.   It appears from "Apple ordered to re-write 'inaccurate' Samsung statement"   that the Court of Appeal took a different view and ordered Apple to take the notice down and replace it with one that does comply with their lordships' intentions. Apparently Apple's counsel asked the Court for 14 days to compose its new notice.  That seems to have gone down like a lead balloon,    Lord Justice Longmore replied:: "We are just amazed that you cannot put the right notice up at the same time as you take the other one down."  Sir Robin Jacob, added: "I would like to see the head of Apple make an affidavit about why that is such a t...

In  Medimmune Ltd v Novartis Pharmaceuticals UK Ltd and Another [2011] EWHC 1669 (Pat) (05 July 2011), Mr. Justice Arnold dismissed a claim for infringement of    European Patents (UK) numbers. 0,774,511 and 2,055,777 by selling a product called ranibizumab which is used for the treatment of wet age-related macular degeneration of the eye on the grounds that the patents were invalid for obviousness and that even if the claims relied upon were valid the process used by the defendants to make the product did not infringe.   In  Novartis Pharmaceuticals UK Ltd v Medimmune Ltd and Another [2012] EWHC 181 (Pat) (10 Feb 2012) the same judge declared that a supplementary protection certificate granted in respect of European patent number 2,055,777 was invalid not only in the light of his earlier finding but because the certificate was was granted in respect of a product that had not been identified in the wording of the relevant claim as a product deriving ...

On 9 July 2012 HH Judge Birss QC, sitting as a judge of the High Court, held in Samsung Electronics (UK) Ltd v Apple Inc . [2012] EWHC 1882 (Pat) that Samsung's Galaxy 10.1, 8.9 and 7.7 tablet computers  did not infringe Apple Inc.'s Community design number 000181607-0001 . I discussed that judgment in this blog in " Apple v Samsung - Compare and Contrast" on 28 Aug 2012. A few days afterwards in  Samsung Electronics (UK) Ltd v Apple Inc (No. 2) [2012] EWHC 2049 (Pat) (18 July 2012) Judge Birss ordered Apple to display the following notice on the home page of their website and in advertisements in the national press: "On 9th July 2012 the High Court of Justice of England and Wales ruled that Samsung Electronics (UK) Limited's Galaxy Tablet computers, namely the Galaxy Tab 10.1, Tab 8.9 and Tab 7.7 do not infringe Apple's registered design 000181607-0001. A copy of the full judgment of the High Court is available via the following link [insert hyper...