NIPC News

Addicted04 / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) Jane Lambert The most striking slide of Francis Gurry 's  Briefing for Member States and Other Stakeholders   of the World Intellectual Property Organization  which he presented on 7 April 2020 is #16,  China surpassed the U.S. as the top source of international patent applications in 2019.  Last year China made 58,890 international patent applications compared to 57,849 from the USA and 52,660 from Japan. According to the same slide, the USA made more patent applications than any other country in 2009.  China lay a long way behind the USA, Japan and Germany with roughly the same number of applications as South Korea and France. The UK came in #7 with 5,786 international patent applications in 2019 if anyone is interested. That is less than 10% of the Chinese figure. This should not come as a surprise to anyone.  I was at a domain ...

Jane Lambert In my June UPC Ratification Update 5 June 2017 I wrote: "There is every chance that the Court will open its doors before the end of this year." Famous last words! Two days later the UPC Preparatory Committee wrote that "the previously announced target date for the entry into operation of the UPC, envisaged for December 2017, cannot be maintained" (see   UPC – Timetable Update – June 2017 7 June 2017 UPC website). For once it is not out fault. Even though we are negotiating terms for exiting the European Union (see Brexit Briefing June 2017   30 June 2017 NIPC News) we remain on course to ratify the UPC Agreement well before we go. The last legislative hurdle is the ratification of the Protocol on Privileges and Immunities of the Unified Patent Court  and that will be done by The Unified Patent Court (Immunities and Privileges) Order 2017 a draft of which has been laid before Parliament together with an explanatory memorandum . ...

Jane Lambert There have been four important developments since I delivered IP Planning for Brexit   to an invited audience of specialist solicitors and patent and trade mark attorneys in chambers on 7 Dec 2016. First, the Bar Council published a set of papers that had been contributed by the specialist bar associations on the legal issues arising from Brexit and coordinated by Hugh Mercer QC's Brexit working group under the title  The Brexit Papers .   In a foreword, the Chair of the Bar explained that the purpose of those papers was "to help the Government evaluate a range of pressing public interest concerns arising from the UK’s decision to withdraw from the EU. These include such matters as cross-country co-operation for the speedy arrest of suspects, child protection across the EU, ensuring firms of all sizes can compete and trade profitably, managing changes to intellectual property law so that our creative industries can flourish, and maintaining curr...