NIPC News

Gray's Inn Square Source Wikipedia Building on our Introduction to IP  seminar on the 26 June 2013 we are holding workshops on: Branding Law  - that is to say trade marks, passing off, geographical indications, domain names on 25 Sept 2013; Creative Output - that is to say copyrights, rights in performances, moral rights and related rights on 30 Oct 2013; and Technology Law - patents, trade secrets, unregistered designs rights (including semiconductor topographies) and plant varieties on 27 Nov 2013. Each of these workshops will last 90 minutes plus breaks on the last Wednesday of each month between 16:00 and 18:00.   If you attend, you will qualify for CPD points from the SRA or BSB.   These talks will lay a foundation for more advanced workshops on the substantive law, licensing and litigation.   Best of all they will provide an opportunity to meet out new IP, technology and media law team who will attend as many of the talks a...

Robert Griffiths QC A lot of IP law relates to sport. Trade marks, association rights, broadcasting copyrights, patents for sports equipment - you name it  There is some IP in it somewhere. Our chambers have always been strong in sport and one of our stars is Robert Griffiths QC . Not only is he a sports lawyer, he is also a sportsman with a particularly strong interest in cricket.  Imagine my delight yesterday morning when he called me to say that he realized that he was actually an intellectual property lawyer as well as everything else and offered to lead our IP, Technology and Media Law Group.   I shall be adding his details to our blog shortly, Other new team members with a strong interest in sport include Samuel Okoronkwo  who knows all there is to know about football  as he is an FA licensed lawyer and agents as well as barrister and Ruhi Sethi  who is a long distance runner. Ruhi is a great addition to the team because she ...

On 3 July 2013 the Irish Supreme Court gave its  judgment  in the appeal by the Irish Data Protection Commissioner ("DPC") in  EMI Records (Ireland) Limited & ors v The Data Protection Commissioner  [2013] IESC 34. Although this represents an endorsement of the voluntary graduated response scheme agreed between ISP Eircom and the record labels, the decision was based essentially on technical grounds. It offers an interesting example, however, of the attitude of an authority charged with enforcing data protection laws. As described in an earlier  post , EMI and other record labels had sued Eircom for participating in the infringement of copyright by its Internet access subscribers. The case was settled by a contractual GR scheme, under which an infringing user would on his third notification be suspended from Internet access for one week; after a fourth notification, Eircom would terminate his access agreement. The user was free to find another ISP if he...

Our head of chambers (who recently received the accolade of Lawyer of the Week   from the Times) and our other silks and specialist practitioners will hold our annual Judicial Review Conference  at the offices of the Law Society between 10:00 and 16:00 on the 4 July 2013. There is a public law dimension to intellectual property. In  Lenzing AG's European Patent (UK) [1997] RPC 245 where Mr Justice Jacobs sat as an additional judge of the Queen's Bench Division upon an application for a review of the implementation in England of a decision of the European Patent Office.  More recently, Mr Justice Kenneth Parker determined an application for a judicial review of the Digital Economy Act 2010 on the grounds of incompatibility with EU legislation in British Telecommunications Plc and another (R on the application of) v The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills [2011] EWHC 1021 (Admin) (20 April 2011). There is a very strong lineup of speakers and an ...

Jane Lambert On Thursday 26 June 2013 I introduced some 20 lawyers and others to intellectual property law. To be fair some members of my audience knew a great deal about the topic. However, I think they all learned something new. Instead of talking about the mechanics of IP law we discussed policy.  How IP has to strike a balance between two conflicting public interests:: incentivizing creativity and innovation; while safeguarding competition and freedom of trade. This tension between these conflicting public interests has existed since the Statute of Monopolies 1623 and the Statute of Anne 1710 and it is essential to appreciate that tension in order to understand IP law.   As it was not possible to cover everything in the 2 hours available to me each delegate got the following 16 page handout. This is the first of a series of talks on IP which we shall offer to solicitors and others over the course of the year.. In this series we shal...