NIPC News

  Jane Lambert The World Intellectual Property Organization has published reports on unlocking IP-backed funding in China , Jamaica , Singapore , Switzerland  and the UK . The report on the UK was launched yesterday in London by Viscount Camrose , Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for artificial intelligence and intellectual property and Daren Tang, Director-General of WIPO on 19 March 2024 (see the Intellectual Property Office's press release Report launched into UK's IP-backed finance landscape   19 March 2024). The report, which can be downloaded as a PDF from the WIPO website consists of 47 pages of text organized in the following sections: Acronyms (common abbreviations such as "HMRC" and "SME"); Glossary Executive Summary The United Kingdonm's Journey  Types and Sources of IP Funds for equity investment and lending The Legal and Regulatory Framework for UK Finance covering accounting standards and financial regulation as well as law Non-regula

Intellectual Property Office Crown Copyright 2007  Open Government Licence v3.0     Jane Lambert A standard essential patent ("SEP") is a patent that has to be worked in order to comply with a technical standard.  Organizations that set such standards (known as standards-setting organizations or SSOs) require SEP proprietors to promise to license the use of their patents to businesses that want to make or distribute products that comply with those standards ("implementers") on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory ("FRAND") terms as a condition for including their patents within the standards. On paper, this looks like a very fair arrangement and in theory, it should work very well but in fact, it doesn't.   One problem is that implementers use a standard without paying any royalties or licence fees to the SEP owners arguing that their patents are invalid or not essential for compliance with the patent.   Another is that SEP owners and implementers h

Author Bashereyre  Licence   Jane Lambert Eleven years ago to this day, I accepted an invitation to join 4-5 Gray's Inn Square as a tenant.  One of the reasons why I did so was because of the set's strength in arbitration,  We have a strong panel that includes members with experience in intellectual property such as  James Bridgeman SC  and  Elizabeth Nicholls  as well as me. On Thursday 8 Feb 2024 I took part in a panel discussion on "Damages Issues in IP and Life Science Disputes at the Butchers' Hal l in the City of London. My fellow panellists were  Amanda Ebbutt of TaylorWessing,  Andrew Tepperman of Charles River Associates and  Epaminontas Triantafilou of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan. Our moderator was  Shreya Gupta of Oxera Consulting. Our panel discussion was one of three sessions at GAR LIVE on Damages , a half-day symposium presented by the Global Arbitration  Review .  The other sessions were "Bridging the Gap: Simplifying Evidence for Tribu

  Jane Lambert On Thursday 8 Feb 2024 I shall take part in a panel discussion on damages issues in IP and life sciences disputes  as part of the Global Arbitration Review's Damages symposium .   I share the platform with very distinguished practitioners.  There will also be talks on simplifying evidence for tribunals, a question time and plenty of networking opportunities.   Anyone who wishes to attend can register here, There is growing interest in arbitration and other forms of ADR for the resolution of intellectual property and technology disputes. In  WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Centre Report 2023   (19 Jan 2024 NIPC News ), I noted that the World Intellectual Property ("WIPO") Arbitration and Mediation Centre reported that it had disposed of 679 disputes in 2023 which was a 24% increase over the previous year and a 280% increase in the last 5 years (see  WIPO ADR Highlights 2023  18 Jan 2024). There are several reasons for this growing interest in ADR for IP dispu

  Jane Lambert About 30 years ago, I attended a workshop on the arbitration of intellectual property disputes. The speakers included  Dr Francis Gurry  and His Honour Peter Ford.  At that time, Dr Gurry was an Australian academic who had written a rather good book on the law of confidence . He went on to become Director-General of the WIPO. Peter Ford was the first judge of the Patents County Court which was the predecessor to the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court ("IPEC"). Two alternative dispute resolution services were set up as a result of that workshop.  One was an arbitration and mediation panel attached to the Patents County Court under the leadership of Prof. Bryan Niblett.  I was a founder member.   I am not sure whether we ever had a case,  Certainly, nothing was referred to me and the panel was disbanded after a few years.   The other was the World Intellectual Property Organization ("WIPO") Arbitration and Mediation Centre which offers arbitration,

Copyright 2023 WIPO  Standard YouTube Licence Jane Lambert The WIPO's World Intellectual Property Indicators 2023   and the statistic that caught my eye is that India filed 31.6% more patent applications in 2022 than in the previous year. According to the accompanying press release, it extended an 11-year run of growth unmatched by any other country among the top 10 filers. India overtook the UK in the list of countries that filed the most patent applications in 2022.   There was a 1.7% growth in the worldwide number of patent applications in 2022 (3,457,400 in 2022 compared to 3,400,500 in 2021.  Some 1.58 million (or nearly half) of those patent applications came from China.  The USA came second with 505,539 applications, Japan third with 405,361, South Korea fourth with 272,315 and Germany fifth with 155,896.  The UK lay eighth with 53,536 between India with 55,718 and Switzerland with 49,077.   There was, however, a sharp drop in trade mark applications (15,543,300 in 2022 co