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Category Archives: General Interest
Trade Secrets
A trade secret is a formula, practice, process, design, instrument, pattern, commercial method, or compilation of information which is not generally known or reasonably ascertainable by others, and by which a business can obtain an economic advantage over competitors or customers. The scope of trade secrets is virtually unlimited. (more…)
IP licensing
What is an IP licence?
An IP licence in its simplest form is an agreement where an IP owner (the Licensor) permits another person (the Licensee) to engage in activities that, in the absence of the IP Licence Agreement, would infringe the Licensor’s legal rights attaching to the IP. In return the Licensee pays the Licensor a fee or confers some other benefit. It is a written agreement that gives rights to do something that would otherwise be an infringement of the IP rights of someone else.
A typical case may involve the Licensor granting the Licensee the right to make and sell patented product perhaps worldwide and for the life of the patent(s). The Licensee agrees to pay the Licensor a royalty, defined as a percentage of Net Sales Value. The Licensor agrees not to make or sell patented product itself nor permit any 3rd Party to do so. (more…)
Intellectual Property from a Corporate in-house perspective
It’s easy for a private practice patent attorney to develop a narrow view of the IP world. Essentially:
Draft – File – Prosecute – Grant – Repeat*
It was therefore a pleasure to welcome Donal O’Connell1 to Keltie recently to provide some insight into the world of Intellectual Property from the perspective of the corporate in-house officer. (more…)
Misleading invoices – IP Scammers
We are delighted to report that there has been some good news in the fight against companies/individuals issuing misleading invoices which appear to be from the UK Intellectual Property Office (UK IPO) (previous IPcopy articles can be found here).
In this regard, a company trading as Intellectual Property Agency Ltd (IPA) and its director Mr Harri Mattias Jonasson were found liable for trade mark infringement and passing off and ordered to pay £500,000 plus legal costs to the UK IPO. (more…)
Avoid jointly owned intellectual property like the plague
Not all the smart people work for you
Traditionally, internal innovation was the paradigm in which most companies operated. Most innovating companies kept their discoveries highly secret and made no attempt to assimilate information from outside their own research and development laboratories. This was driven by the belief that “the smart people in our field work for us”. However, in recent years the world has seen major advances in technology and society, changes which have facilitated the diffusion of information. Companies have also come to realise that “not all the smart people work for us, and that we need to work with smart people inside and outside our company”. (more…)
Game Changers or Lion Tamers?
Lion tamer?
We were glad to be joined at the Keltie offices on the 30th of September by the Lawyers’ Business Development Club, for an early morning talk from Ronan Dunne, CEO of Telefónica UK Limited.
Before attending the event, Ronan tweeted a question to be posed to the audience, which also acted as a theme for his talk on his personal career journey: Lawyers – Game Changers or Lion Tamers? (more…)
Live or let die? – Formal recommendations to abolish Australia’s Innovation patent system
Today on IPcopy we have a guest post from Caroline Bommer of Shelston IP on the subject of Australia’s innovation patent system. This post first appeared on the Shelston IP website and has been reproduced with the permission of the author.
In June 2014, following a three year plus review process with a broad range of inputs, ACIP (the Advisory Council on Intellectual Property), published a “final” report on the effectiveness of the Australian innovation patent system. Despite the results of its own economic research commissioned as part of that review, it was unable to come to any clear conclusions regarding retention or abolition of the system, and limited its recommendations to options for addressing concerns regarding the current low patentability threshold. (more…)
Summer Summary
A Bank holiday plus a torrential downpour must mean that summer’s just about over. Just in case you missed us over the last few weeks, here’s our summer round-up from mid-July through to the end of August. (more…)
Keltie: Charity Events
This September Keltie teams will be raising money for a range of charities by taking part in the Run the River and Tough Mudder events. Full details including links to their team profiles and charity pages are below. (more…)
Rihanna, Topshop and a Narrow Opening to Image Rights in the English Legal System?
The English legal system does not acknowledge image rights. Celebrities cannot claim a monopoly on their image, nor a right to control the use of their name, likeness and other attributes that the public associates with them. Historically, they have resorted, as a compromise, to other forms of protection, such as registered trade marks and passing off (see explanation of passing off below), in particular.
However, a recent appeal judgement by the English Courts indicates that in certain circumstances, and depending entirely on the facts of the case, the Common Law tort of passing off can be “stretched” to prohibit the commercial use of celebrities’ images. This precedent is, in the view of the author, likely to be applied tightly, but presents an opening that celebrities will look to rely on to control the use of their image by unauthorised third parties.
The appeal judgement relates to the entertainment industry and follows a case successfully brought by pop-star Rihanna against the high street retailer Topshop. However, the implications for sports personalities, for whom a large proportion of the earnings originates from product endorsements, are self- evident and possibly greater that those for the entertainment industry. (more…)
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