NIPC News

IP Valuation Article  Hidden Value - A Study of the UK Valuation Market   30 Sep 2017 The announcement of the appointment of Metis Partners to market Barratts' intellectual property occurred a few days after the publication of Martin Brassell and Jackie Maguire's study of the British IP valuation industry. The study was commissioned by the IPO to help it understand why businesses do not value their IP rights more often. The authors do not address that question directly but rather preliminary questions on the size of the market and the scope for its expansion. It is an interesting and useful enquiry accompanied by an even more useful and interesting appendix on methodology. The report prompted my own thoughts on valuation and whether it is useful. While agreeing that it can be useful I point out that it is not fully developed and that there is a lot of muddled thinking as to how IP works, I can understand businesses' reluctance to use it. However, that should change...

Inaugural Conference of World Business Angel Association in Beijing 2009 Author JohnnyOnTheSpot  Licensed by the author Source Wikipedia Jane Lambert In IP's not just for Big Brands and High Tech Businesses  27 Aug 2016 I wrote: "In my career at the Bar, have known far more businesses that have failed from having too much IP than too little. Some of those failures had been caused by patents that cost many thousands of pounds to obtain but could never be worked. Others by disputes that were abandoned because the rights owner (who in many cases had a strong claim) simply ran out of money." In many instances, such patents and other IP rights were sought to attract, or to fulfil a condition for, investment. While it is understandable that an angel or private equity investor should desire the most extensive legal protection possible for his or her investment a patent for an invention that may never be worked or any IP right that the business cann...

WIPO Head Office Photo Wikipedia Jane Lambert Last Wednesday I attended the annual domain name panellists' meeting at the World Intellectual Property Organization ("WIPO") 's head office in Geneva. The meeting normally takes place on the third Monday of October but this year it was postponed until December. The WIPO is one of five domain name dispute resolution service providers that have been approved by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers ("ICANN")  for the resolution of disputes between trade mark owners and those who have registered domain names. The other service providers are the Arab Centre for Dispute Resolution , the  Asian Domain Name Dispute Resolution Centre , the Czech Arbitration Court Arbitration Centre for Internet Disputes  and the National Arbitration Forum . By a memorandum of understanding between the US Department of Commerce and ICANN dated 25 Nov 1998 the US government entrust...

Jane Lambert When I practised on my own account from the Media Centre in Huddersfield my strapline was "Bringing high quality advice and advocacy to those who need them most but can often afford them least."  Although I now have to charge more because I have much higher costs I try to do the same in London. It is now more necessary than ever because the Legal Services Consumer Panel wrote at page 5 of their report 2020 Legal Services How regulators should prepare for the future   November 2014: "The core challenge ahead is to extend access to justice to those currently excluded from the market because they cannot afford legal services. This need and other forces, including government policy, consumer empowerment, technology and the effects of liberalisation, will combine to result in less involvement by lawyers in many of the tasks that until now have made up their staple diet. Consumers will seek alternatives to lawyers or use them in differen...

Our head of chambers (who recently received the accolade of Lawyer of the Week   from the Times) and our other silks and specialist practitioners will hold our annual Judicial Review Conference  at the offices of the Law Society between 10:00 and 16:00 on the 4 July 2013. There is a public law dimension to intellectual property. In  Lenzing AG's European Patent (UK) [1997] RPC 245 where Mr Justice Jacobs sat as an additional judge of the Queen's Bench Division upon an application for a review of the implementation in England of a decision of the European Patent Office.  More recently, Mr Justice Kenneth Parker determined an application for a judicial review of the Digital Economy Act 2010 on the grounds of incompatibility with EU legislation in British Telecommunications Plc and another (R on the application of) v The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills [2011] EWHC 1021 (Admin) (20 April 2011). There is a very strong lineup of speakers and an ...