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London Tech Week 2018
London Tech Week, the week long festival showcasing the best of tech and innovation, returns again this year between 11th and 17th June and Keltie will be taking part with the following two free events: (more…)
Brexit and Intellectual Property – state of play May 2018
The EU-UK draft withdrawal agreement was republished recently to show which sections have been agreed and which sections require further discussions. The agreement has been helpfully colour coded into green sections (agreed provisions, technical legal revisions only) and yellow sections (policy agreement, drafting changes required). Sections that are left white represent terms proposed by the EU where negotiations are still required.
The draft withdrawal agreement contains a provision for a transitional period (Article 121) which will run from the UK’s official exit from the EU (on 29 March 2019) until the end of 2020.
A summary of the provisions that relate to intellectual property (IP) is provided below. It is noted that the articles of the withdrawal agreement that relate to IP (Articles 50-57) contain a mixture of green and white sections. The “green” provisions that have, in principle, been agreed are: (more…)
UPC Ratification: The UK completes its ratification formalities
According to the website of the Council of the European Union (and just about every other official IP channel), the UK deposited its instrument of ratification (on 26 April 2018) to become the 16th country to complete its ratification formalities. The UK joins Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Italy, the Netherlands, Bulgaria, Finland, Portugal, Luxembourg, Malta, Denmark, Belgium, Sweden, France and Austria as one of the sixteen countries who have completed their ratification processes.
The unitary patent system requires 13 countries to ratify, including the UK, France and Germany. However, the German Constitutional Court challenge has thrown the timescale and the long term future of the unitary patent system into doubt.
There are now enough countries to have ratified the unified patent court agreement that the system will come into effect if Germany completes its own ratification procedures and sufficient approvals to the PPA are obtained.
(more…)
Mark Richardson 27 April 2018
Brexit – European Commission Notice regarding .EU domain names
Image from pixabay.com
Late last month the European Commission issued a notice regarding the impact of Brexit on .eu domain names.
The notice states that, unless the EU and the UK agree otherwise in the withdrawal agreement, from 30 March 2019 the “EU regulatory framework for the .eu Top Level Domain” will no longer apply to the UK. This has a number of consequences: (more…)
Brexit and IP: EUIPO Q&A document
The EUIPO has recently published a Q&A document relating to the impact of Brexit on EU trade marks (EUTMs) and registered community designs (RCDs). This document was effectively the third publication on the impact of Brexit on Intellectual Property after the EU Commission’s position paper last year and the EUIPO’s notice which was published in December 2017 (and updated in January 2018). (more…)
The Road to Brexit: EU Commission Draft Withdrawal Agreement and the UK PM’s Mansion House Speech
Last Wednesday the European Commission published its draft Withdrawal Agreement relating to the withdrawal of the UK from the EU and the European Atomic Energy Community. This was followed a couple of days later by a speech from the Prime Minister which set out some more details about the UK position. Intellectual property got a mention in both the Withdrawal Agreement and the Mansion House speech. (more…)
UPC Update February 2018: UK and DE progress and the future of the UPC
The UK has now completed all its legislative steps with respect to the UPC Agreement and UPC’s Protocol on Privileges and Immunities and is in a position to ratify the UPC Agreement. However, the potential timescale of the constitutional court challenge in Germany and the remaining ratification/implementation period means, in IPcopy’s view, that the UPC system will not come into force, at least in its current configuration. (more…)
Olympics 2018: IP at the Ice Hockey
The Winter Olympics in PyeongChang are in full flow and while curling has been winning a new fan in the A-Team’s Mr T (#curlingiscoolfool), IPcopy has been watching the ice hockey. Or, more accurately, our colleague Samantha Walker-Smith was watching the preliminary round match between the USA and Finland. Now, while most of us might be content in marvelling at the skating skill levels on display and mentally comparing those skills to our feeble efforts at the Christmas wonderland ice rink a few weeks ago (…or maybe that was just me), Sam had other things on her mind. In particular, Sam noticed1 that the hockey sticks of the Finnish team were displaying patent markings! (more…)
Gowling WLG – Patent Seminar 2018
IPcopy was present for the annual patent seminar at Gowling WLG last week.
Carrying on the format from previous years, Alex Brodie opened up the proceedings with a look at UK court statistics. Gowling WLG’s case counting exercise attempts to catch as many cases as possible but Alex Brodie noted that not all cases are published or commented on and so there may potentially be some that are not included.
Having acknowledged the counting process behind the statistics it was noted that the total number of patent decisions in 2017 shows a slight fall from previous years – 62 total cases versus 79 (2016) and 75 (2015). This fall may be an example of a Brexit effect but it was highlighted that there have also been some significant cases this year and there are only so many judges to go around. (more…)
UPC ratification: Latvia completes its ratification formalities
According to the website of the Council of the European Union, Latvia has now deposited its instrument of ratification (on 11 January 2018) to become the 15th country to complete its ratification formalities. Latvia joins Lithuania, Estonia, Italy, the Netherlands, Bulgaria, Finland, Portugal, Luxembourg, Malta, Denmark, Belgium, Sweden, France and Austria as one of the fifteen countries who have completed their ratification processes.
The unitary patent system requires 13 countries to ratify, including the UK, France and Germany. Brexit in the UK and a court challenge in the German Federal Constitutional Court (GFCC) has put the brakes on the progress of the unitary patent system. (more…)
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