NIPC News

  (c) 2023 NIPC all rights reserved St Salvator's College Quad 15 Feb 2023 Jane Lambert Just before Christmas Daniel Alexander KC held in  Oxford University Innovation Ltd v Oxford Nanoimaging Ltd  [2022] EWHC 3200 that the CEO of Oxford Nanoimaging Ltd had been a "consumer" within the meaning of reg 3 (1) of  The Unfair Contract Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999 when he signed up as a research student at Oxford University.   His contract incorporated Oxford's intellectual property policy which vested the right to apply for patents for student inventions in the University. The learned deputy judge assessed that provision for fairness. On the facts before him, Mr Alexander found that the term had been fair but had he found otherwise the intellectual property policy would not have bound the student.  I discussed the case and its implications in  Patents: Oxford University Innovation Ltd v Oxford Nanoimaging Ltd   on 23 Jan 2023 in N...

Standard YouTube Licence Jane Lambert On the day that my article   Patents - Interdigital Technology Corporation and others v Lenovo Group Ltd. and others   appeared in which I discussed Mr Justice Mellor's 225-page judgment in Interdigital Technology Corporation and others v Lenovo Group Ltd. and others   [2023] EWHC 539 (Pat ),  the Intellectual Property Office ("IPO") announced a questionnaire on standard essential patents ("SEPs") for SME small-cap and mid-cap businesses. This follows an earlier consultation on SEP licensing that the IPO launched on 7 Dec 2021.  I discussed it in  IPO Consultation on SEPs and Innovation   on 19 Dec 2021.  The IPO received 56 responses to that consultation.  The names of the respondents appear in Annex A  to a Summary of Responses to the Call for Views .  Their responses are analysed in that document.  Bearing in mind the costs of FRAND litigation and that it seems to involve only mass...

Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3. 0.   Jane Lambert Yesterday the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology published its Science and Technology Framework   which its press release described as "the government’s plan to cement the UK’s place as a science and technology superpower by 2030."  The aspiration to become a science and technology superpower by 2030 first appeared in  Global Britain in a competitive age   which I reviewed in an article by the same name in IP after Brexit on 19 March 2021 and it was renewed in    UK Innovation Strategy Leading the future by creating it   which I reviewed in UK Innovation Strategy   on 12 Aug 2021. The Science and Technology Framework is a much lighter document than the UK Innovation Strategy.  It is 19 pages long including the front and back cover and a foreword by the Secretary of State , Michelle Donelan MP on pages 5 and 6.   ...

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   Andrew Woodvine   Licence CC BY-SA 2.0   Source Wikimedia Commons   Jane Lambert Yesterday I delivered a seminar on intellectual property law to the teams working on research, innovation, commercialization and partnership support for  Bangor University . They were the professionals who negotiate licence and consultancy agreements and set up spin-off companies to exploit research carried out at the University. I gave PowerPoint presentations on the following topics between 14:00 and 17:00 with short breaks for questions and answers: An overview of intellectual property law covering the difference between intellectual property and intellectual assets, categorization of intellectual property rights, how brands , designs , technology and creativity are protected, the main features of patents , registered designs and supplementary unregistered designs , copyrights , rights in performances , unregistered design rights , trade marks , passing off and ob...

St Salvator's College, St Andrews © 2018 Jane Elizabeth Lambert:  All rights reserved:   Jane Lambert It is often forgotten that law was once taught at St Andrews though not always in the town itself. St Andrews lost its law school in 1967 when Queen's College in Dundee became a separate university. Many St Andreans continued to make their way to the law after 1967 but they obtained their legal education elsewhere. In 2015. an Institute of Legal and Constitutional Research was established at St Andrews.  According to its website, it is "the home of outstanding cross-disciplinary research in the fields of law, legal history and constitutionalism."  The Institute's website also states that the University is home to a vibrant student law society .  I visited that society's website and noticed that its  partners included several leading law firms but no English or Welsh chambers or Scottish stables.  Curious as to why that should be, I contacted the soci...

Punts on the Cam © 2017 Jane Lambert: all rights reserved Jane Lambert This year's Cambridge IP Law Summer School lived up to expectations . Cambridge is delightful at any time of the year.  It was good to see it just before Christmas when the winter school took place. The course is stimulating even if it is held online as happened in 2020 .  But the best place to hold it is Cambridge and Summer is the best time. The course takes place at Downing College which has produced many of the country's leading practitioners and academic lawyers.  One of them was Christopher Stothers  whose talk on arbitration of intellectual property disputes was one of the highlights of my week.  We had a lot of good speakers from several countries. Delegates came from Belgium, Denmark, the Irish Republic amd Saudi Arabia as well as the UK. IP law has changed significantly since our departure from the EU. Our government is negotiating free trade and other agreements with the government...