NIPC News

Standard YouTube Licence Jane Lambert Today is World IP Day , an international festival of innovation and creativity to celebrate the entry into force of the Convention establishing the World Intellectual Property Organization  on 26 April 1970. The World Intellectual Property Organization ("WIPO")  is the UN specialist agency for intellectual property with responsibility for administering most of the world's intellectual property treaties , formulating future policy for the protection of intellectual assets  and resolving intellectual property disputes .  The WIPO has 193 member states  each of which is encouraged to celebrate World IP Day.  Particulars of those celebrations are posted to the World Intellectual Property Day Events Calendar . The United Kingdom is contributing 6 events this year: IP With Guy Fox on 18 April 2021 The Scottish Bar's 13th World IP Conference  organized by the Faculty of Advocates in Edinburgh on 23 April 2021 Leeds Cent...

Author Illustratedjc   Licence CC BY-SA 3.0   Source Wikimedia Commons   Jane Lambert Marks & Spencer's claim against Aldi over its Cuthbert the Caterpillar cake has attracted the interest of the general public (see  M&S begins legal action against Aldi over Colin the Caterpillar cake   16 April 2021 BBC website).  Within a few hours, I had received emails about the claim from a colleague in chambers, my senior clerk and the winner of a TV cooking contest.  Checking Linkedin the next morning, I saw that the leading Welsh IP solicitor Jonty Gordon had posted: "Well i chdi wylio newyddion Cymraeg bore ma felly" ("Gotta watch the Welsh language news this morning"). And the Director of the Menai Science Park Pryderi ap Rhisiart  wrote: " Colin vs Cuthbert Edrych mlaen i drafod yr achos yma gyda Jane Lambert a Jonty Gordon - solicitor y tro nesa welai nhw! Look forward to discussing this case with Jane and Jonty the next time I see them!" H...

Author Karl Bodmer  Welsh coracles in America   Jane Lambert Nearly 800 years before the Mimosa set sail for Chubut, Madoc, one of the sons of King Owain ap Gruffudd and a small band of retainers landed near New Bern in North Carolina.  Researchers of the Pre-Columban Civilization Department of Boondock State University have discovered that stone fragments in a hitherto undeciphered script that were discovered on the banks of the Missouri river at the end of the 19th century are in a language closely related to modern Welsh.    Dated about 1500 the fragments trace the history of Madoc's landing in Craven county, their welcome by, and assimilation with, indigenous Americans, their expeditions across the Appalachian mountains and the creation of a brilliant Celtic-Indigenous American civilization known as "the Mandans" that subsisted until the arrival of European settlers in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. The reason I mention these discoveries is t...

Standard youtube Licence Jane Lambert The Patent Cooperation Treaty ("PCT") is an international agreement that makes it cheaper and easier for inventors or their employers to apply for patents for their inventions in more than one country. Readers who are unfamiliar with the PCT will find a very good video on the agreement on the WIPO website. The treaty came into force in 1978. In every year of the subsistence of the treaty up to 2019, the USA made more applications than any other country.   In 2019 China nosed ahead of the USA with 59,193 applications compared to the USA's 57,499. In 2020 it increased its lead to 68,720 over the USA's 59,230 (see  Annex 1: International patent applications by origin (PCT System)  to the press release  Innovation Perseveres: International Patent Filings via WIPO Continued to Grow in 2020 Despite COVID-19 Pandemic   2 March 2021). The number of applications from the UK also increased from 5,773 in 2019 to 5,9...

  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 ...

Counting down to an interesting conversation today! Have you saved it on your calendar? Blessed to have the multitalented and innovative Barrister @nipclaw on the panel! pic.twitter.com/WNMqVIIoCI — Intellectual Property Lawyers Association Nigeria (@IplanNg) November 26, 2020 Jane Lambert Yesterday I spoke at a webinar entitled "The Business of Dance" which was organized by the Intellectual Property Lawyers Association of Nigeria .  My fellow panellists were Jemima Angulu of Krump Studios ,  Victor Nwejinaka of Blackbones Theatre Kompany , Basorun Aderoju of Hyeres Elite Athletes and Talents and Folarin Aluko  of Trumann Rockwood LP. We also had an intervention from one of the judges of the Customary Court of Nigeria . For many years I have been trying to arrange a similar discussion in the United Kingdom but without success,  That is because intellectual property specialist lawyers and patent and trade mark attorneys do not see much demand fo...