NIPC News

Author US Government Licence Public domain Source     Wikimedia Commons Jane Lambert Since I discussed the Intellectual Property Office's consultation on Copyright and Artificial Intelligence  in  UK Government Launches Consultation on AI and Copyright   on 16 Dec 2024, HM Government has published its  AI Opportunities Action Plan , the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change its Rebooting Copyright: How the UK Can Be a  Global Leader in the Arts and AI   white paper and the World Artificial Intelligence Film Festival  is about to open in Nice. Until recently, attention has focused on the negatives of AI.  The late Stephen Hawking warned that it could end human existence (see Rory Cellan-Jones, Stephen Hawking warns artificial intelligence could end mankind   2 Dec 2014).  Others worried that it could reinforce inequalities between sections of society or bolster repression. In his foreword to the Tony Blair Institute white pape...

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...

Author Utilisateur:Ork.c h Licence CC BY-SA 2.0FR   Source Wikimedia Commons Jane Lambert The World Intellectual Property Organization ("WIPO")  operates the Patent Cooperation Treaty ("PCT") , Hague Agreement  and the Madrid Protocol .  These are international agreements that facilitate applications for patent, design or trade mark registrations in multiple countries and territories from a single filing. Those agreements simplify and greatly reduce the costs of obtaining international legal protection for technology, designs and brands. On 28 Feb 2023, the WIPO published its statistics for patent , design and trade mark registrations in 2022.  There had been a 0.3% increase in international patent applications from 277,182 in 2021 to 278,100 despite the pandemic, conflict in Ukraine, fluctuating energy prices and other adverse economic conditions.  There was a much sharper increase in design registration applications from 6,714 in 2021 to 7,973 in 20...

  Author  Furdur  Source  Wikipedia Jane Lambert The purpose of intellectual property is to protect investment in developing a revenue generating asset. That is the reason for the business strategy that I outlined in Putting IP at the Hear of your Business Plan   2 Jan 2015.  That strategy identifies the optimum legal protection for the intellectual assets likely to contribute most to your business and the steps needed to enforce such protection. For a lot of businesses, the optimum legal protection was an EU trade mark a registered Community design or, in a few cases, a Community plant variety. These ceased to apply to the UK from 23:00 on 31 Dec 2020 though art 54 of the Agreement on the Withdrawal of the UK from the EU  provided for the assets that had been protected by those rights to continue to be protected in the UK by s corresponding British trade mark, registered design or plant variety. The withdrawal agreement ensured continued subsistence...

Jane Lambert The World Intellectual Property Organization its World Intellectual Property Indicators Report for 2020 on 7 Dec 2020. For the first time since the 2998 world economic downturn, there had been a 3% drop in patenting activity since 2018 but a sustained increase in the number of applications for trade marks, designs and plant breeders' rights.  The reason for the reduction in the number of patent applications from 3.3 million in 2018 to 3,2 million in 2019 is that the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) received 9.2% fewer applications in 2019 than it did in the previous year and the Japan Patent Office ("JPO") 1.8% fewer.  The CNIPA still received 1.2 million patent applications which was more than any other office. The US Patent and Trademark Office came second with 621,453, the JPO third with 307,969, the Korea Intellectual Property Office fourth with 218,975 and the European Patent Office fifth with 181,479.  Intellectual property ...

Standard YouTube Licence Jane Lambert On 26 April of each and every year, the world's intellectual property practitioners celebrate World Intellectual Property Day . It falls on the anniversary of the day the Convention Establishing the World Intellectual Property Organization  ("WIPO") came into force.  Each year the day has a different theme.  The theme for 2020 is "Innovate for a Green Future," According to the WIPO's World IP Day index page: "We explore how a balanced and robust IP system can support the emergence of a green economy that works with and not against the earth’s life-support systems. We look at how the patent system fosters innovation and the development and diffusion of eco-friendly technologies that enable us tackle the climate crisis and build a green future; how design thinking and design rights together support the optimal use of resources and enable designers to invest their time and talent in creating useful, attrac...

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 ...

Downing College Cambridge Jane Lambert Last week I was invited back to Cambridge by Knect365 to speak to the Cambridge IP Law Summer School  at Downing College. I was asked to repeat the talk on IP disputes and bilateral investment treaties that I gave to the 2017 summer school  and to mention the research on IP enforcement in the digital environment that Professor Frederick Mostert and I had carried out for the Advisory Committee on Enforcement of the WIPO (see Mostert and Lambert  Study on Intellectual Property Enforcement Measures, Especially Anti-piracy Measures in the Digital Environment – Executive Summary   and the full report) . I also chaired the final day's session on "Contentious IP". As in 2017, this year's course took place in Downing College's  Howard Building .  That building consists of a ground floor common room with a licensed bar and an auditorium on the floor above.  Morning coffee, afternoon tea and some ...

Jane Lambert I have been invited to speak ar MBL's IP for Commercial Lawyers - 2018 Conference  which will take place in London between 09:30 and 17:15 on 27 Nov 2018.  The conference will cover a wide range of topics from basic concepts to the effect of Brexit on IP rights.  My topic is " Patents - What happens after Brexit£  which will address the thorny question of whether there is any chance that the Unified Patent Court will ever open its doors. As brands , designs  and  plant varieties  can be protected throughout the European Union by EU trade marks , registered  and unregistered Community designs  and Community plant variety rights  and as much of our national trade mark, registered design, copyright, trade secrecy and patent law has been harmonized by EU directives, our withdrawal from the EU will have far-reaching consequences for British businesses which I have charted in my Brexit blog . Recently the go...