NIPC News

Eden Estuary and Former Paper Mill Author Jim Bain   Licence  CC BY-SA 2. 0  Source Wikimedia Commons   Jane Lambert It has been years since I graduated from St Andrews, but the University is still capable of teaching me something new and useful.  Yesterday, I learned a lot about enterprise, innovation and inclusion at a Connect-Ed Network Meet Up on Engaging and Supporting Female Founder s in the Cathedral Room at Walter Bower House on St Andrews's new Eden Campus . The meet-up began with a buffet lunch at 13:00.  I got to meet the Chair, Bonnie Hacking . Programme Manager, Entrepreneurship Centre, two of the speakers, Niki McKenzie , Joint Managing Director at Archangel Investors Limited , and product designer,  Kat Pohorecka , who is also an associate at Edinburgh Innovations , and many of the attendees, before the formal proceedings.  The third speaker was a remarkable recent graduate called  Simone Korsgaard Jensen ,...

Author Stephen Sweene y Licence CC NY-SA 2.0   Source Wikimedia Commons   Jane Lambert Yesterday I attended a talk by Andrew Cla y, a partner of Sonder & Clay and founder of TIPSY , entitled  ‘IP Rights – a good thing or a capitalist attack on the intellectual commons?’  in the new seminar room of the Department of Medieval History at St Andrews.  I was there for two reasons.  The first was to support Andrew (having badgered him for some time to give this talk) and the Institute of Legal and Constitutional Research  and the University of St Andrews Law Society , which hosted it.  The second reason was that I could combine attendance at Andrew's talk with a visit to the U niversity of St Andrews's Eden Campus , which will host an Engaging and Supporting Female Founders: Connect-Ed Network Meet Up .  this afternoon. Andrew began his talk by explaining how and why he became a solicitor. He then projected a picture of Jam...

Author US Government Licence Public domain Source     Wikimedia Commons Jane Lambert Since I discussed the Intellectual Property Office's consultation on Copyright and Artificial Intelligence  in  UK Government Launches Consultation on AI and Copyright   on 16 Dec 2024, HM Government has published its  AI Opportunities Action Plan , the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change its Rebooting Copyright: How the UK Can Be a  Global Leader in the Arts and AI   white paper and the World Artificial Intelligence Film Festival  is about to open in Nice. Until recently, attention has focused on the negatives of AI.  The late Stephen Hawking warned that it could end human existence (see Rory Cellan-Jones, Stephen Hawking warns artificial intelligence could end mankind   2 Dec 2014).  Others worried that it could reinforce inequalities between sections of society or bolster repression. In his foreword to the Tony Blair Institute white pape...

Dickson Poon School of Law Author Vladgrigore   Licence CC BY-SA 4.0   S ource Wikimedia Commons   Jane Lambert Last November the University of St Andrews Law Society  invited me to return to my alma mater to judge a mooting competition.   I wrote about it in Learning the Law in St Andrews - Mooting   on 6 Nov 2024. Yesterday I was asked by the King's College London Bar and Mooting Society  to join a panel discussion on intellectual property practice.  As I had previously worked with  Professor Frederick Mostert  on a project for the World Intellectual Property Organization which I mentioned in Another Side of the WIPO   on   5 Sept 2019, I was delighted to return to King's College . On arriving at the college's porters' lodge I met my colleague, Mark Engelman,   He old me that he had also been invited to sit on the panel.  Shortly afterwards we were joined by officers of the Society who led us through the securi...

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...