NIPC News

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 wa...

Summer School Attendees  © 2017 Gita Mistry: All rights reserved   Jane Lambert For the first time in three years, there will be an IP Law Summer School in Cambridge in Summer . There was an IP law Summer School in 2020 but it took place entirely online.  There were presentations on IP law in Cambridge last year given by the usual speakers but they took place in December . We had a dinner and pub quiz but not much else.  We also had to give the last few talks online to comply with public health regulations.   If you want to know what happens at the Cambridge IP Law Summer School, look at my write-ups for 2017 and 2019 .  The event is attended by some of the leading practitioners in this country and abroad.  For instance, on Tuesday 16 Aug 2022 I will introduce Sean Leach from Mathys & Squire, Hiroshi Sheraton from Baker & McKenzie, Andrew Payne from TaylorWessing, Matthew Shade of Wilmer Hale, Andrew White of Mathys & Squire, Timothy...

Intellectual Property Office Crown Copyright 2007 Open Government Licence v3.0   Jane Lambert One of the talks that I gave at the Cambridge IP Law Winter School  was "TMT: A SEP and FRAND Overview".    I did not choose that title so I shall try to explain what I think it means.   "TMT" stands for technology, media and telecoms. TMT is a sector where there has been a lot of litigation about "SEPs".  SEPs are "standard-essential patents", that is to say, patents for inventions that a telecoms equipment manufacturer has to use if it is to implement a technical standard.  Technical standards are set by standards-setting organizations ("SSOs"). An important SSO for mobile communications is the European Telecommunications Standards Institute ("ETSI") .   "FRAND" is short for "fair", "reasonable" and "nondiscriminatory" and refers to the terms on which SEP owners are supposed to license the use...

European Commission Author  EmDee  Licence  CC BY-SA 4.0  Source  Wikipedia Commons Jane Lambert In the last few years, there has been a spate of litigation throughout the world between businesses that have acquired large portfolios of patents that are essential for compliance with a manufacturing standard which are known as "standard essential patents" ("SEP")  and the world's consumer electronics manufacturers known as "implementors" who want to use their patents.  Standard setting institutions such as ETSI  require the proprietors of SEPs to license their patents to implementors on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory ("FRAND") terms. Such an arrangement ought to work very well.   As Mr Justice Marcus Smith said in Koninklijke Philips NV v Asustek Computer Inc. and others [2020] EWHC 29 (Ch) (17 January 2020) at paragraph [7 (4)]: "Standard Essential Patents can be of great value to their holders. Holders can expect a substa...

Jane Lambert Since 2017 I have been invited to speak at the Cambridge IP Law Summer School.  I shared my experiences in Cambridge IP Law Summer School 2017   on 20 Aug 2017 and Cambridge IP Law Summer School 2019 on 19 Aug 2019. I am sorry to say that Downing College cannot host us this year because of the COVID-19 emergency.   Happily, not all is lost because Informa , which runs the course, has made arrangements to hold it online (see IP Law Summer School     10 to 20 Aug 2020). I shall deliver two papers: "TMT A SEP & FRAND": Standard essential patents and FRAND (fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory) terms for the licensing of such patents on 12 Aug 2020 at 15:20; and "Intellectual Property Enforcement Measures, Especially Anti-piracy Measures in the Digital Environment"  on 20 Aug 2020 at 14:25. When I was invited to give the first talk in November we had every hope of a decision of the Supreme Court on the topic....

Author :  Jack Torcello Licence  Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 unported Source  Wikipedia Jane Lambert In this Update, I discuss my article on FRAND. the article 50 negotiations with the remaining 27 EU member states. Silicon Roundabout, accessing free IP advice in Yorkshire and my presentation on copyright in photographs in Liverpool yesterday. FRAND Ever since the Statute of Monopolies 1623, the law has tried to balance the interests of consumers with those of inventors. The current manifestation of this balancing exercise occurs where an industry standard requires the use of patented inventions. Obviously, patentees expect and are entitled to be rewarded for their ingenuity but if consumers are to benefit fully from advantages in technology all manufacturers must be allowed to use the patented inventions. The question then arises on what terms and in particular at what rates should such inventions be licensed? The answer from cour...