NIPC News

Whitehall Author: Tbmurray , L icence: CC BY 3.0 ,   Source: Wikimedia Commons Jane Lambert On 15 July 2025, the British government launched a consultation on SEP licensing , which I discussed in  Latest Consultation on Standard Essential Patent Licensing   on 18 July 2025.  The consultation received 93 replies , which the government has now considered.   It published its response on 13 Oct 2026. The Problem To facilitate the development and distribution of new electronic products, standard setting organisations ("SSOs")  such as the  European Telecommunication Standards Institute ("ETSI" ) or the International Telecommunication Union Telecommunication Standardisation Sector (ITU-T)  establish technical standards to enable different manufacturers' devices to work together using the latest technology. Often, such standards require businesses wishing to implement them ( "implementers" ) to use patented inventions.  Patents for in...

Sir Richard Lambert Author Financial Times Licence Creative Commons Attribution0Share Alike 2.0 Generic Source Wikipedia Sir Richard Lambert Jane Lambert The Lambert Toolkit  is a set of precedents (templates) and notes to help universities and business owners draft agreements to decide who should benefit from any technological developments or innovation that might result from research or other work that universities carry out for business.  They are named after Sir Richard Lambert ,  a former Director-General of the Confederation of British Industry, member of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England and editor of the Financial Times.  I had very little to do with the toolkit though I did attend a meeting chaired by Sir Richard and contributed to the drafting of one of the clauses of at least one of the draft agreements. Although the draft agreements are not compulsory they do save time and money and minimize the...

Photo Adrian Pingstone Reproduction kindly licensed by the author Source Wikipedia Jane Lambert The IPO  has published details of the  China IP Roadshow 2017  when our IP attaché, Tom Duke,  will tour Scotland and the North of England between 18 and 20 Sept. My chambers are assisting with the Yorkshire leg of his tour and I can tell you that there have been a lot of enquiries and we are already into double figures with the bookings. If you want to attend the Leeds event call my clerk Steve on 020 7404 5252 or send him an email  without delay. Most British businesses do very well in China but things can go wrong sometimes. When they do, they can have repercussions here. That is where I come in.  Here are some of the problems that occasionally arise: The British trade mark of a company that applies to register that mark in China is opposed, invalidated or revoked; A company that imports goods from China for distribution in the UK fi...

Jane Lambert Earlier this year I discussed mediation as a method of resolving IP disputes (see IP Mediation 22 May 2015). Mediation is a form of alternative dispute resolution ( "ADR" ) , that is to say resolving a disputes without going to court.  ADR offers a number of advantages which the World Intellectual Property Organization ( "WIPO" ) listed in ADR Advantages . As I noted in my previous article "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" in every case. In that article I described mediation as "chaired" or "facilitated" negotiation. Like all forms of negotiation it works through consent. However. there are some disputes that can never be resolved in this way.  They require an  adjudication , that is to say a decision based on a finding of fact and law....