NIPC News

Jane Lambert Immediately after last Friday's breakfast meeting at Daresbury Sci-Tech, I attended an interactive session with Phil Carvil, the cluster's development manager,  exploring how the Daresbury HeathTec Cluster can work with innovators and industry. The official launch had taken place the previous day. Phil began his talk by asking who had attended it.  Phil explained that the cluster aims to bring together business, academics and the public sector in the North of England. He reminded us that there are 28 universities and more than 1,200 life science companies employing over 50,000 people in the region.  Some 32 of those companies are based in Daresbury itself. The Cluster's vision is set out in the leaflet Connecting Capabilities .  It is the second health technology cluster in the UK, the first being at Harwell in Oxfordshire. Phil hoped that the two networks would complement each other. He expected businesses on one campus to find partne...

Jane Lambert Mediation can best be described as "chaired" or "facilitated" negotiation. It works because negotiations proceed through an intermediary known as "a mediator" who is often privy to information that neither party would disclose to the other. To show how mediation works I have uploaded two case histories: one on the resolution of a computer supply dispute  and the other a trade mark opposition  (see also  Mediating Disputes from the Trade Marks Registry   1 Sept 2005 NIPC Law). Both the courts and the Intellectual Property Office ( "IPO" ) hearing officers expect parties to consider mediation or some other form of alternative dispute resolution before issuing proceedings. Both have power to penalize parties who fail to do so by, for example, disallowing costs that they would normally have awarded to the successful party or awarding more costs than they would otherwise have ordered the unsuccessful party to pay. Th...