NIPC News

Jane Lambert While an employee remains on your payroll he or she is bound by an implied obligation of good faith and fidelity to do his or her best for you. He or she is not allowed to discuss your affairs in public or work for a competitor. As Mr Justice Laddie said in Ocular Sciences Ltd v Aspect Vision Care Ltd (No.2)  [1997] RPC 289, [1996] EWHC Patents 1, (1997) 20(3) IPD 20022, that has nothing to do with the law of confidence or trade secrecy. However, the employee is not your slave. He or she is entitled to seek work elsewhere or even set himself or herself up in business in competition with you. If the employee leaves your employment he or she is likely to use skills, knowledge and experience gained in your employment. There is nothing wrong with that even if you have spent time and money training the employee. After all, you see nothing wring in recruiting someone who has been trained by somebody else do you. Nor is it disloyal of the employee to atten...

In an email to the Intellectual Property Bar Association , our Chair Henry Carr QC reported that he and a party of other IP lawyers and patent attorneys visited 1000 Dockland Road, Royal Albert Dock, London E16 2QU last month. The reason for their visit is that the site has been identified as a possible venue for the London section of the central division of the Court of First Instance of the Unified Patent Court. The estate agents' particulars sound idyllic: "Fully accessible raised floor Suspended ceiling with 1.5m planning grid Cat 5 lighting Excellent natural light Views over Royal Albert Dock Four pipe fan coil air conditioning 7 underground car parking spaces and bicycle storage 3 passenger lifts Five-storey winter garden and building reception On site coffee shop, cafeteria and news agents."! Henry's note is also pretty encouraging: "1. The facility is, potentially, very good for a European Institution. The space is l...

WIPO Head Office Photo Wikipedia Jane Lambert Last Wednesday I attended the annual domain name panellists' meeting at the World Intellectual Property Organization ("WIPO") 's head office in Geneva. The meeting normally takes place on the third Monday of October but this year it was postponed until December. The WIPO is one of five domain name dispute resolution service providers that have been approved by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers ("ICANN")  for the resolution of disputes between trade mark owners and those who have registered domain names. The other service providers are the Arab Centre for Dispute Resolution , the  Asian Domain Name Dispute Resolution Centre , the Czech Arbitration Court Arbitration Centre for Internet Disputes  and the National Arbitration Forum . By a memorandum of understanding between the US Department of Commerce and ICANN dated 25 Nov 1998 the US government entrust...