NIPC Law

Lord Kitchin* Jane Lambert Supreme Court (Lords Hodge, Kitchin, Hamblen, Leggatt and Richards) Thaler v Comptroller General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks 2 March 2023 "DABUS" stands for "Device for Autonomous Bootstrapping of Unified Sentience". It was created by Dr Stephen L Thaler . who has trained it to invent  a food container  and  devices and enhanced devices and methods for attracting enhanced attention .  Dr Thaler has applied for patents for those inventions in several countries including the UK His applications have been rejected by the European, British and American and most of the world's other patent offices on the ground that an inventor must be a natural person.  The only country in which he has been successful is South Africa (see the South African Patent Journal July 2021 Vol 54 No 07 ). There is a list of Patents and Applications   for those inventions   on The Artificial Inventor Project website. In the United Kingdom, Dr T...

Author Pierre Adolphe Valett e   Jane Lambert Patents Court (Nicholas Caddick KC)  Price and others v Flitcraft Ltd and other s [2023] EWHC 695 (Pat) (3 April 2023) I discussed Nicholas Caddick KC's judgment in  Price and others v Flitcraft Ltd and other s [2022] EWHC 3381 (Pat) (20 Dec 2022) in Patents, Copyright and Passing off - Price v Flitcraft Lt d on 16 Jan 2022 and  A Patent Trial in Manchester at Last - Price v Flitcraft Lt d   in IP Northwest on 17 Jan 2023,  This was an action for patent and copyright infringement and passing off.  The first claimant, Philip Price, did not win on anything but the second claimant, Supawall Ltd, did have some success with the patent claim though not with passing off.  As it was not obvious which party was the overall winner a further hearing took place on  16 March 2023 to decide which of those parties should pay which costs.  The judgment was handed down on 3 April 2023 ( Price and others v F...

Author Friedrich-Johann-Justin-Bertuch    Jane Lambert Intellectual Property Enterprise Court (HH Judge Melissa Clarke)  Evans v John Lewis Plc and anothe r [2023] EWHC 766 (IPEC) (3 April 2023)    This was another copyright case that turned on whether copying could be proved.  The claimant was the self-published author of a children's book about a young dragon who could not help emitting fire. She claimed that a substantial part of her work had been copied in an advertising film that had been made by the second defendant for the retailer John Lewis Plc at Christmas 2019. That film featured another fire-emitting young dragon and was accompanied by a spin-off children's book called Excitable Edgar .  The claimant sued for copyright infringement. The creators of the film counterclaimed for a declaration of non-infringement and a publicity order.  The action and counterclaim came on for trial before Her Honour Judge Melissa Clarke on 30 and 31 Jan 20...

Author Evan-Amos   Licence Public Domain   Source Wikimedia Commons   Jane Lambert Business and Property Courts , Intellectual Property List (chD) (Mr Justice Zacaroli PQ Systems Europe Ltd and another v Aughton and another [2023] EWHC 581 (Pat) This was an action for copyright infringement and breach of confidence. The claimants were two software houses, one English and the other American, which were at the relevant time owned by the same shareholder.  The English company was PQ Systems Europe Ltd ("PQSE") and the American one was Productivity-Quality Systems Inc.   The first defendant was one Jeff Aughton ("Mr Aughton"). He had been an employee and director of PQSE  The second defendant was a company owned by the first defendant and his wife called Factoria Ltd.  The Claimants' Software The claimants accused Mr Aughton of copying their software.  That software was statistical process control ("SPC") and gauge management software. SPC ...

  Jane Lambert Business and Property Courts, Intellectual Property List (Mr Justice Miles) Iconix Luxembourg Holdings SARL v Dream Pairs Europe Inc and another [2023] EWHC 706 (Ch) (28 March 2023) This was a trade mark dispute.  The claimant was the owner of the Umbro brand, one of the biggest and most famous in sportswear.  It holds a number of well-known trade marks in the UK including the following which is registered under trade mark number UK00000991668  for “articles of clothing for use in sports, athletics or gymnastics.” The claimant also holds this mark which was filed for footwear and clothing at the European Intellectual Property Office in 2003 and is now registered in the UK: The defendants distribute football boots and other footwear and clothing through Amazon and eBay,  Their goods are marked with the following logo as in the photo of the green football boot above.   The defendants have registered that sign as a UK trade mark for clothing ...

Author Stacey Harris   Licence CC BY-SA 2.0   Source Wikimedia Commons   Jane Lambert Business and Property Courts, Intellectual Property List (Mr Justice Marcus Smith) Molavi v Gilbert and others    [2023] EWHC 646 (Ch) (23 March 2023) This was an application under  CPR 24.2 (1) (i) , by the writer, Virginia Gilbert, BBC Studios Production Ltd and the British Broadcasting Corporation for summary judgment in an action that had been brought against them by the screenwriter Dr Donna Molavi for copyright infringement and breach of confidence . They contended that the claimant had no real prospect of succeeding in her allegation that they had copied her storyline and other material for two episodes of the forensic pathology series Silent Witness .   Copying can be inferred where the following conditions are satisfied: there is an objective similarity between the original work and the alleged copy; and the author of the alleged copy had an opportunit...