NIPC News

Author   Chensiyuan   Licence CC BY-SA 3.0   Source Wikimedia Commons   Jane Lambert The scheme known as direct or public access by which members of the public may approach barristers without first instructing a solicitor or other intermediary came into being on 1 July 2004. The 20th anniversary of the start of that scheme has coincided with the Bar Council's launch of a new Direct Access Portal  and three YouTube videos entitled What is Direct Access? , What does a Direct Access Barrister do?  and How to use the Direct Access Portal?    I was one of the first barristers to qualify for direct access.  I received my first instructions through the scheme within days of finishing the course.   I have continued to receive a flow of direct access work ever since. The scheme implemented the recommendations of a report by a working party chaired by Sir Sydney Kentridge KC with the title  Competition in Professions.  The   re...

Jane Lambert In November 2010, a few months after it had assumed office, the Coalition Government commissioned Prof. Ian Hargreaves  to review how the intellectual property framework supports growth and innovation. His terms of reference  expressly included "the cost and complexity to SMEs of accessing IP services to help them to protect and exploit IP". At para 9.2 of his report,  Digital Opportunity A Review of Intellectual Property and Growth , which   Hargreaves presented in May 2011, he identified "gaps in IP knowledge among SMEs and gaps in IP services available to them" which impaired the "ability of young and innovative UK firms to realise the potential value of IP".  That mattered, according to Hargreaves "because of the growing importance of smaller IP intensive firms to future growth."  Hargreaves found that the reason for those gaps was that current service provision was not configured as well as it could have been to ...