NIPC News

Jane Lambert  When I was called to the Bar our design law was relatively straightforward. Features of shape, configuration, pattern or ornament applied to an article by any industrial process or means with eye appeal that were new or original could be registered under the Registered Designs Act 1949 for 5 renewable periods of 5 years each up to a total of 25 years. Design drawings for manufactured products were artistic works within the meaning of s.3 (1) of the Copyright Act 1956 and so long as the drawing was original copyright protected the design for the life of the author of the drawing plus 50 years. All this came to an end on 1 Aug 1989 when the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 came into force.  The Act overhauled the Registered Designs Act 1949 and provided that it was "not an infringement of any copyright in a design document or model recording or embodying a design for anything other than an artistic work or a typeface to make an article to the design or t...

Diagram of the Turing test Author Juan Alberto Sánchez Margallo Licence CC BY 2.5   Source Wikimedia Commons   Jane Lambert Following the Court of Appeal's judgment in Comptroller General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks v Emotional Perception AI Ltd [2024] EWCA Civ 825. [2024] Bus LR 1589, [2024] WLR(D) 339 on 19 July 2024 which I discussed in Patents - the Appeal in Comptroller v Emotional Perceptions   on 26 Aug 2024, the UK Intellectual Property Office has published new  Guidelines for examining patent applications relating to artificial intelligence (AI)  and  Scenarios applying the guidelines for examining patent applications for AI . The Guidelines state that AI inventions as computer-implemented inventions. They explain that AI inventions rely on mathematical methods and computer programs in some way. The law excludes from patent protection inventions relating solely to a mathematical method or a program for a computer but when a...

Source I PO Press Release 17 Dec 2024  Licence   OGLv2.0   Crown Copyright   Jane Lambert The litigation between Getty Images and Stability AI which I discussed in  Copyright and Artificial Intelligence - Getty Images (US) Inc and Others v Stability AI Ltd   on 12 Dec 2023 in NIPC Law shows the need for greater clarity in our copyright law as to the respective rights of content producers and software developers to use materials on the internet to train artificial intelligence models,   In response to that concern the Intellectual Property Office in conjunction with the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology and the  Department for Culture, Media and Sport  has launched a 10-week consultation entitled Copyright and Artificial Intelligence   on how the government can ensure the UK’s legal framework for AI and copyright supports the UK creative industries and AI sector together. The main proposal is to amend the Copyright,...

St Salvator's College Author Andy Hawkins   Licence CC BY-SA 2.0   Source Wikimedia Commons   Jane Lambert Although St Andrews lost its law school in 1967 when Queen's College became the University of Dundee, St Andrews graduates continued to enter the legal professions of all parts of the United Kingdom and many other countries.  Their entry into the law is eased by the University of St Andrews Law Society  a student organization supported by Herbert Smith Freehills  and other leading law firms .  The Society holds activities that prepare students for law school and a career in the law including moots, talks and workshops.   I was invited to return to St Andrews on Monday 4 Nov 2024, to judge a mooting competition.  I sat with Mike Gettinby  Chief Legal Officer at the University of St Andrews and  Paulina Kachalova , Mistress of the Moots, to judge one contest and with Callum Friel , Master of the Moots, to judge the...

By Herbert Baker - https://www.flickr.com/photos/stevecadman/2347434439/, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=68619795 Downing College, Cambridge Jane Lambert I have been chairing sessions and speaking at the Cambridge IP Law Summer School  on and off since 2017 and have enjoyed every one tremendously but I think this year's was the best ever.  That was because there was an exceptional cohort of attendees drawn from the Civil Service, Magic Circle law firms, Sweden, Turkiye and business and an updated programme which included artificial intelligence, database rights, geographical indications and the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024. The Summer School took place at Downing College between Monday 12 Aug and Friday 16 Aug 3035. There was a different agenda each day.    The first day's agenda was  "Fundamentals" , the second day's was "Patents" , the third's was " Soft IP" , the fourth's  "...

By XrysD - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=133523323 English Local Authorities   Jane Lambert Local enterprise partnerships ("LEPs") were collaborations between local authorities, businesses and universities to take over responsibility for local economic development from the regional development agencies.  They were established by the Coalition government shortly after it came into office.  I wrote about their formation in Local Enterprise Partnerships Begin to Take Shape   in the  NIPC Inventors Club blog on 21 Oct 2010. In his Spring budget statement, Mr Jeremy Hunt MP, who was then Chancellor of the Exchequer, announced a consultation on transferring the functions of the LEPs to local authorities (see Government Plans to abolish LEPs  by Kwame Boakye in the Local Government Chronicle of 15 March 2023).  After an information-gathering exercise by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, and the...