NIPC News

Author World Intellectual Property Organization  Licence Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Internat Jane Lambert The Global Innovation Index ("GII") analyses innovation ecosystems across 139 economies, tracking global innovation trends through investment patterns, technological progress, adoption rates, and socioeconomic impact.  The United Kingdom ranked 4th in that index, behind Switzerland, Sweden, and the United States, in 2021, 2022, and 2023. In 2024, it dropped to 5th, overtaken by Singapore.  In 2025, it was also leapfrogged by South Korea, which rose from 6th in 2024. The UK is ahead of Germany, Japan and France which are now outside the top 10 altogether.  Germany was 9th last year, but has slipped to 11th.  Its position in the top 10 has been taken by Germany. Japan has risen from 13th to 12th.  France has dropped from 12th to 13th (see Figure 1, "The GII Dynamo: The Top 15 Innovators, 2021–2025 "). The performance of each participating count...

Copyright 2023 WIPO  Standard YouTube Licence Jane Lambert The WIPO's World Intellectual Property Indicators 2023   and the statistic that caught my eye is that India filed 31.6% more patent applications in 2022 than in the previous year. According to the accompanying press release, it extended an 11-year run of growth unmatched by any other country among the top 10 filers. India overtook the UK in the list of countries that filed the most patent applications in 2022.   There was a 1.7% growth in the worldwide number of patent applications in 2022 (3,457,400 in 2022 compared to 3,400,500 in 2021.  Some 1.58 million (or nearly half) of those patent applications came from China.  The USA came second with 505,539 applications, Japan third with 405,361, South Korea fourth with 272,315 and Germany fifth with 155,896.  The UK lay eighth with 53,536 between India with 55,718 and Switzerland with 49,077.   There was, however, a sharp...

Jane Lambert On 28 April 2022, the European Patent Office and the European Investment Office published a joint report entitled  Deep tech innovation in smart connected technologies A comparative analysis of SMEs in Europe and the United States April 2022 .  Although the report contained a lot of positive findings, the headline of the EPO's news item was decidedly gloomy: "Despite impressive patent activity, Europe’s small deep tech businesses lag behind their US counterparts." Part of the reason for the gloom is that report focused on the EU rather than Europe as a whole. Consequently, it missed the fact that the UK has almost 1,000 small and medium-sized enterprises developing 4IR technologies (nearly twice as many as Germany with 570 and nearly two and a half times as many as France with 400) and that London hosts one of the top clusters of such businesses (see page 30 and the map on page 29 of the main report). It would have been interesting to know the reasons for t...

Standard YouTube Licence Jane Lambert According to the Global Innovation Index 2021   which the WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization), the UN agency for intellectual property, published on Monday 20 Sept 2021, the United Kingdom came 4th in the global rankings behind Switzerland, Sweden and the United States of America. Bearing in mind that the UK lies 13th in the number of patent applications to the world's top 20 patent offices according to the World Intellectual Property Indicators   which is also published by the WIPO (see UK Innovation Strategy , 12 Aug 2021 NIPC Inventors Club ), the UK's position near the top of the Global Innovation Index is surprising. The answer is to be found in the WIPO's press release,  Global Innovation Index 2021: Innovation Investments Resilient Despite COVID-19 Pandemic; Switzerland, Sweden, U.S., U.K. and the Republic of Korea Lead Ranking; China Edges Closer to Top 10   PR/2021/880 of 20 Sept 2021: "The Index is built on ...

Standard YouTube Licence Jane Lambert Today is World IP Day , an international festival of innovation and creativity to celebrate the entry into force of the Convention establishing the World Intellectual Property Organization  on 26 April 1970. The World Intellectual Property Organization ("WIPO")  is the UN specialist agency for intellectual property with responsibility for administering most of the world's intellectual property treaties , formulating future policy for the protection of intellectual assets  and resolving intellectual property disputes .  The WIPO has 193 member states  each of which is encouraged to celebrate World IP Day.  Particulars of those celebrations are posted to the World Intellectual Property Day Events Calendar . The United Kingdom is contributing 6 events this year: IP With Guy Fox on 18 April 2021 The Scottish Bar's 13th World IP Conference  organized by the Faculty of Advocates in Edinburgh on 23 April 2021 Leeds Cent...

Standard youtube Licence Jane Lambert The Patent Cooperation Treaty ("PCT") is an international agreement that makes it cheaper and easier for inventors or their employers to apply for patents for their inventions in more than one country. Readers who are unfamiliar with the PCT will find a very good video on the agreement on the WIPO website. The treaty came into force in 1978. In every year of the subsistence of the treaty up to 2019, the USA made more applications than any other country.   In 2019 China nosed ahead of the USA with 59,193 applications compared to the USA's 57,499. In 2020 it increased its lead to 68,720 over the USA's 59,230 (see  Annex 1: International patent applications by origin (PCT System)  to the press release  Innovation Perseveres: International Patent Filings via WIPO Continued to Grow in 2020 Despite COVID-19 Pandemic   2 March 2021). The number of applications from the UK also increased from 5,773 in 2019 to 5,9...

Standard YouTube Licence  Jane Lambert The Global Innovation Index  (GII") is an annual ranking of countries by their capacity for innovation. It is compiled by Cornell University business school , INSEAD (Institut Européen d'Administration des Affaires)  and the WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization) . In their  report for 2020 , they placed the UK fourth in the GII behind Switzerland, Sweden and the USA, This is one up on the previous year though it will be seen from the graphic on page 12 of the report that the UK has been higher.  In 2015, for instance, the UK came second (see the Department for Business Innovation and Skills' press release UK ranked as world-leader in innovation   17 Sept 2015), The reason for its fourth =p;ace in the rankings appears to be as follows: "In addition, the country maintains its top three lead in the quality of its universities (2nd) and the quality of its scientific publications (1st). It ranks sixth in the qual...

Jane Lambert Earlier this year the World Intellectual Property Organization  published WIPO IP Facts and Figures 2018 .  This is a compendium   of statistics on worldwide patent, design and trade mark filings.  The headline figures are that there were 3.17 million patent applications around the world in 2017, as well as 1.78 million utility model applications, 12.39 million trade mark applications and 1.24 million applications for the registration of industrial designs.  The lion's share of those application cams from Asia with 97.1% of the world's utility model, 67.9% of its industrial design, 66.6% of its trade mark and 65.1% of its patent filings.  North America came second in patenting with 20.3% and Europe third with 11.2% but Europe was ahead of North America in trade mark, industrial design and utility model registrations.  Some 85.1% of the world's 3.17 million patent applications were filed with the world's top five ...

Jane Lambert I mentioned the IPAN World IP Day conference in Happy World Intellectual Property Day   earlier today.  I knew that the Minister would speak at the event but I did not know that he would announce British Ratification of the Unified Patent Court Agreement .  But that is precisely what happened (see  Sam Gyimah announces ratification of the Unified Patent Court Agreement   26 April 2018 IPO). That does not mean that the Unified Patent Court will open its doors any time soon or that the UK can remain party to the agreement after Brexit.  The German Constitutional Court has still to hear and determine a constitutional complaint by the German IP lawyer, Dr Ingve Björn Stjerna, on the constitutionality of the UPC Agreement and that may take more than the 11 months in which the UK remains a member of the EU (see  One Year to Brexit - Are Rumours of the Death of the Unified Patent Court Agreement Greatly Exaggerated?   29 March ...

Jane Lambert One of the most important cases of 2017 was the Supreme Court's decision in Eli Lilly v Actavis UK Ltd and Others   [2017] Bus LR 1731, [2017] UKSC 48.  That case is important for two reasons. First, it re-struck the balance that the law has to strike between the needs of inventors for reasonable protection for their inventions, competitors in the industry for certainty and clarity as to what they can and cannot do and the general the general public for reasonable competition much more favourably to inventors.  Secondly, the Court considered for the first time topics such as the "doctrine of equivalents" and "file wrapper estoppel" that are familiar to US judges and lawyers but not to their colleagues in this country. I wrote about that case in  The Supreme Court's Judgment in Eli Lilly v Actavis UK Ltd and Others: how to understand it and why it is important   13 July 2017 NIPC Law. My case note received a lot of hits and favoura...

Jane Lambert The politics.co website has just published an article entitled  Intellectual Property: why you should choose the UK   with a brilliant video on behalf of the Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys, the Chartered Institute of Trade Mark Attorneys, The British Association of the International Federation of Intellectual Property Attorneys, the Intellectual Property Lawyers Association and the Law Society. It makes several excellent points about our international connections, our commercial strengths, the quality of our counsel, litigators and patent and trade mark attorneys, the speed and thoroughness of our courts and our mother tongue. Wishing all my readers a great weekend.

Jane Lambert Art 89 (1) of the Agreement on a Unified Patent Court  provides that the Agreement will come into force on the 1st day of the 4th month after the deposit with the Commission of the 13th instrument of ratification or accession including deposits of such instruments by France, Germany and the United Kingdom. According to the Council website , 12 states have deposited instruments of ratification. The last of these was Italy which deposited its instrument on on 12 Feb 2017.  Italy's ratification is particularly significant for two reasons. The first is that it had opposed the unitary patent in C-274/11 - Spain and Italy v Commission and others     [2013] EUECJ C-274/11 on the grounds that the implementing legislation was incompatible with EU law. The second reason why Italy's participation is significant is that it will be entitled to host one of the sections of the Central Division of the Court of First Instance should the UK be obliged ...

Jane Lambert Our IP system, which is ranked by TaylorWessing as one of the best in the world (see The Global Intellectual Property Index ) consists of some rights that subsist under national law and others that subsist under EU law. When we eventually leave the EU, those rights that subsist under EU law such as the EU trade mark and the Community design will fall away. I discussed those consequences generally in What Sort of IP Framework do we need after Brexit and what are we likely to get?   3 July 2016. In this article I consider how those changes will affect the British fashion industry which relies on EU trade marks and Community designs more than most. I have chosen this industry because I have conducted seminars on IP and fashion in London and Leeds (see  IP and Fashion Law   12 Sept 2015 London IP and Tech,  IP and Fashion Seminar - 7 Oct 2015   20 Sept 2015 and  Second Course on IP and the Fashion Industry   27 May 2016), ...

Upon seeing the above presentation one of my Yorkshire clients sent me the following rant: "Hello Jane, I have just finished watching your Enforcing IPR talk. Very impressive. The UK law is so dysfunctional and financially prohibitive — serving only the financial elite. I have to say, having listened to it, it reinforces what I have been saying to you for some time ... Why bother with IPR? I mean, why bother with protecting IPR if it is just not within financial reach to defend it? ADR could be the beneficiary of such prohibitive costs, but not really. For example, if one entity is more financially endowed than the other it actually is a strategy to threaten the other side with the court system, if only because they know it will bankrupt the other side. The courts no longer represent fairness, or right over wrong. The UK law is so dysfunctional and financially prohibitive — serving only the financial elite. I feel quite depressed to be honest! Kind regards" There...

National Media Museum, Bradford     Source Wikipedia Jane Lambert Tomorrow is World Intellectual Property Day . I wish all my readers a happy World Intellectual Property Day.   Folk may think that that is an odd greeting. But is it?  When someone is ill don't you wish him a speedy recovery? What is more likely to accelerate his recovery than the medicine or medical device that may have cost millions to develop.  The fruits of that investment are protected by the patents, trade marks and other rights that prevent competitors from taking advantage of the research and development work known collectively as "intellectual property".   Intellectual property is the glue that holds investment in branding, design, technology and creative works together.  So the greeting "Happy World Intellectual Property Day" is a kind of celebration of the world's advances in science, technology, the arts and literature. Every year there is a differ...