NIPC News

A uthor:  Raimond Spekking ,  Licence:  CC BY-SA 4.0 ,  Source:  Wikimedia Commons   Jane Lambert On 2 Sept 2026, I published Intellectual Property Law in the Isle of Man   in NIPC Northwest.  It made 520 impressions, prompted 11 reactions and drew the following comment from Timothy Powell : "VERY interesting, Jane. What chance a copyright case might come up there?" Not long after Tim asked that question, Mr David Stone handed down judgment in  DLP Limited v Coram UK Holding Limited  [2026] EWHC 2448.  This was a patent case in which the patentee was a company that had been incorporated and was doing business in the Isle of Man. The patent was for a Shower waste pump and control uni t. The patentee alleged that two of the defendant company's products infringed its patent. The defendant denied infringement and counterclaimed for revocation of the patent on the grounds that the invention was obvious and not new.  Mr Stone...

Court of Chancery, Old Hall, Lincoln's Inn, Circa 1808 Author: Thomas Rowlandson and others, Public Domain, Source: Wikimedia Commons   Jane Lambert In New Business and Property Division ,  3 June 2026, I mentioned the Lady Chief Justice's announcement that a new Business and Property Division would be established early in the next legal year.   In their press release ,  Modernisation of High Court structure comes into effect today ,  the Courts and Tribunals Judiciary announced that the change took  effect yesterday. The Business and Property Courts and Lists page  shows that the new Division takes over the work previously done by the Chancery Division.  It also acquires the Commercial Court and the Technology and Construction Court from the King's Bench Division.   The head of the new Division is to be known as the President (see President of the Business and Property Division ). Practitioners will have to get used to a modified s...

Author:  World Intellectual Property Organisation .  Licence: CC BY 4.9 .  Source: WIPO Knowledge Repository Jane Lambert The World Intellectual Property Organisation ("WIPO")  has recently published its Global Innovation Index for 2026.  This is an annual ranking of 139 countries by their capacity for and success in innovation.  The United Kingdom came 6th in that ranking in 2026 as it did in 2025.  The countries above it were Switzerland, Sweden, the United States of America, South Korea and Singapore.   One area in which the UK has done well is in deep science startups.   According to  Press Release 2026/959 , there have been more than 30,000 such enterprises since 2020.  The USA accounted for 12,752, China 3,466 but the UK came in third with 2,133. Anyone wishing to discuss this article may call me on 020 7404 5252 during UK business hours or send me a message through my contact page at any time.

Singapore Supreme Court and Legislature Author: ZKang123     Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0   Source:  Wikimedia Commons   Jane Lambert In Intellectual Asset Funding   10 Aug 2026 NIPC Inventors' Club, I discussed an announcement by the British Business Bank that it would make up to £500 million of ENABLE Guarantee capacity available over an initial 12-month period to support lending to IP-rich smaller businesses.  Such initiatives will work only if there is an internationally recognised, comprehensive and consistent method of intellectual asset valuation.   Up to now, there has been none. That is about to change with the launch of the Intangible Asset Valuation Network in Singapore during its Intellectual Property Week.    This is a joint project by the International Trademark Association, the International Valuation Standards Council, the Licensing Executives Society International, the World Intellectual Property Organisation, t...

  Jane Lambert Every 5 November we celebrate the foiling of a plot to assassinate King James I and Members of Parliament in 1605 with fireworks.  This year there will be a different kind of fireworks at the Chicago Booth Conference Centre  when many of the world's IP practitioners and scholars meet for CTC Legal Events'  Winter IP Conference to discuss the latest developments in SEP licensing, copyright and LLM training and other urgent topics.   This year's conference is the third such event. I participated in last year's and wrote about it in CTC Legal' s Second  London IP Conference on 10 Nov 2025. This year's format has been redesigned to concentrate the patent and trade mark forums and other discussions into a single day. I have been invited back this year to talk about the Supreme Court's judgment in Tesla, Inc and another v InterDigital Patent Holdings, Inc and others [2026] UKSC 27, which I discussed in Patents - Tesla Inc v InterDigita...

Royal Courts of Justice Author:  Aurelien Guichard   Licence:  CC BY-SA 2.0   Source:  Wikimedia   Jane Lambert The presiding judge of the Civil Division of the Court of Appeal is the Master of the Rolls.  It is a very important office.  Previous incumbents such as Lord Denning and Lord Woolf  have greatly influenced the development of the law.   The present Master of the Rolls is Sir Geoffrey Vos.   According to the Courts and Tribunals Judiciary website , his successor is to be the Chancellor, Sir Colin Birss. Sir Colin has held many important judicial offices over the years, but I would argue that one of his most significant achievements was the relaunch of the Patents County Court in 2010.   The court had been established by the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 to resolve patent and design disputes between small and medium enterprises.  Despite the high hopes of those who promoted it, the court wa...