NIPC News

Author Charles Levy Licensed by US government Source Wikipedia Jane Lambert I apologize in advance to those who will be offended by this post. I acknowledge that a photo of a mushroom cloud is pretty tasteless but it is sometimes necessary to shock in order to drive home a point. And my point is that an intellectual property right ( "IPR" ) is a title to bring a law suit which, like weapons of mass destruction ( "WMD" ), has potency only if and to the extent that it is ever likely to be used. The reason why doubt can arise as to whether an IPR will ever be used is that civil litigation is outrageously expensive.  In Ungar v Sugg (1899) 9 RPC 117 Lord Esher MR said: "A man had better have his patent infringed, or have anything happen to him in this world, short of losing all his family by influenza, than have a dispute about a patent. His patent is swallowed up, and he is ruined." Despite cost capping in what is now the Intel...

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...

Sacher Cake Author Illustratedjc Creative Commons Licence Source Wikipedia Jane Lambert At the beginning of the last century there was a bitter dispute between the Hotel Sacher  and Demel  over the right to sell the original Sacher cake  (see the " Legal Issues "  section of the article in Wikipedia ). I have been instructed in similar disputes in England (see Fat Betty, Bettys & Taylor Group Ltd. v Cheese & Co.   BL   O/163/09 16 June 2009) and briefed and consulted by just about every type of business from architects to undertakers. Every type of business owns at least some intellectual assets. It would not be able to function without them. And each and every one of those concerns relies on intellectual property law to remain in business. Starting at its most basic it will have its name and reputation. That may simply be the name of the owner or it may be a fancy name like The Golden Hind. Its products and s...

Jane Lambert Our IP system, which is ranked by TaylorWessing as one of the best in the world (see The Global Intellectual Property Index ) consists of some rights that subsist under national law and others that subsist under EU law. When we eventually leave the EU, those rights that subsist under EU law such as the EU trade mark and the Community design will fall away. I discussed those consequences generally in What Sort of IP Framework do we need after Brexit and what are we likely to get?   3 July 2016. In this article I consider how those changes will affect the British fashion industry which relies on EU trade marks and Community designs more than most. I have chosen this industry because I have conducted seminars on IP and fashion in London and Leeds (see  IP and Fashion Law   12 Sept 2015 London IP and Tech,  IP and Fashion Seminar - 7 Oct 2015   20 Sept 2015 and  Second Course on IP and the Fashion Industry   27 May 2016), ...

National Galleries of Scotland Author Finlay McWalter Source Wikpedia Creative Commons Licence Jane Lambert On 15 April 2016 I was invited to speak to t he Scottish meeting of the Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys at the Scottish National Gallery in Edinburgh on Preparing for the Unitary Patent and the UPC. I was one of four speakers. The others were: Catriona M Hammer  who spoke on Portfolio Strategy for Start-Ups, Spin-Outs and Other Small Businesses ; David Bloom of Safeguard IP who spoke on Intellectual Property Insurance Solutions ; and  Eleanor Wade of the Intellectual Property Office whose talk was entitled Updates form IPO. Over 50 patent attorneys and other IP professionals attended the meeting which was chaired by Andrea Brewster. I enjoyed all the presentations but I found Catriona's particularly interesting as I specialize in advising and representing start-ups and other SME. She has spent most of her career i...

Jane Lambert In  Basic Facts About Trademarks: What Every Small Business Should Know Now, Not Later , one of the best video introductions to trade mark law I know in any country, the presenter Mark Trademan (yes that really does appear to be his surname) of the US Patent and Trademark Office Trademark Information Unit  asked an audience of entrepreneurs and small business owners how many of them had a business plan. A forest of hands shot up. "How many of you with business plans have a trade mark component?" asked Mr Trademan. Silence. "OK, I was afraid of that." The response would have been no different had Mr Trademan given his presentation here even though our own Intellectual Property Office warn in  Before you apply for a patent   on the British government website that "it’s pointless patenting an invention unless you have a proper plan for making money from it and can defend it against copying." Everybody knows that a business...

Embedded pursuant to the standard YouTube Licence Jane Lambert The Intellectual Property Office has recently uploaded a series of videos to its YouTube channel  which are very short but also very useful. The primer is IP Basics: What is Intellectual Property   and it is followed by films on copyrights. designs , patents and trade marks . Although they have been uploaded for some time they do not seem to have been watched by many people which is a pity because they are a lot better than the advice one can expect from most invention promotion companies or even some lawyers and, of course, they are free. The above video on  IP BASICS: Is Intellectual Property important to my business?   has received only 970 views since the 27 Nov 2015 and a large number of those will have have been made by me. I hope this article may attract more viewers for these films. Good though the IPO animations are there are some that have been produced by other organizations that I l...