Birss to be next Master of the Rolls

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 was not an immediate success.   It became a success with the introduction of a new set of rules and practices known as the Arnold reforms (see Jane Lambert, New Patents County Court Rules, 31 Oct 2010, NIPC Law).  While Sir Richard Arnold may have been their architect, it was His Honour Judge Birss (as Sir Colin then was) who implemented them.  

The Patents County Court is now known as the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court (see Jane Lambert, What does the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court mean for Litigants in the North West? 12 Oct 2013, NIPC Northwest).  Sir Colin was elevated to the High Court bench although he had sat as a Patents Court judge on several occasions.  As an assigned judge and later as a Lord Justice of the Court of Appeal, he made many more landmark decisions.   Perhaps his most consequential was Unwired Planet International Ltd v Huawei Technologies Co Ltd and another  [2017] EWHC 1304 (Pat), [2017] RPC 20. In that case, he settled the terms of a FRAND licence and offered an implementor the choice of accepting the licence or facing an injunction preventing its use of standard essential patents in the UK.  His lordship's judgment was eventually upheld by the Supreme Court and followed in several other jurisdictions (see Jane Lambert, Patents: Supreme Court upholds Court of Appeal and Sir Colin Birss on FRAND 27 Aug 2020, NIPC Law).

Many judges suffer from a condition which my former senior clerk called "judgeitis" (essentially forgetting that they were ever at the Bar).  I am glad to say that Sir Colin has never shown any of the symptoms of that ailment.   He has twice dined at TIPSY (the Yorkshire Intellectual Property Society) and was the most congenial guest (see Jane Lambert Plausibly TIPSY 27 Nov 2024 NIPC Yorkshire and TIPSY Dinner for Mr Justice Birss 28 Feb 2020 NIPC Yorkshire).

According to Wikipedia, Sir Colin was born in 1964, which means that he has a good long run before he reaches judicial retirement age.  There is every chance that he could become as influential as Lord Denning.

Anyone wishing to discuss this article may call me on 020 7404 5252 during office hours or send me a message through my contact form.