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Category Archives: General Interest
A Question of Data Protection
One trend in sport that is becoming increasingly prominent is the capture (and subsequent processing) of athlete data via wearable devices. While this is usually done for medical, training or performance purposes, the desire on the part of sports bodies to identify new revenue streams is strong and there is no doubt that the demand for this kind of data is growing. Alongside the technological difficulties, one of the most significant obstacles to the successful commercialisation of that data is data protection. Nick White, Partner at Couchmans LLP, examines the treatment of athlete personal data gathered via wearable technology and does so through the lens of the recent general approach adopted by the Council of the European Union (‘the Council’) on 15 June 2015 concerning the proposed draft General Data Protection Regulation (‘GDPR’). (more…)
Book Review: ‘Inside Intellectual Property – Best Practice in Intellectual Property Law, Management and Strategy’
‘Inside Intellectual Property’ is written by a true ‘insider’ . Mike Jewess is the quintessential IP insider, his impressive career in IP having spanned private practice at a major London IP firm, senior in-house roles across a range of industries (including telecoms, packaging, aerospace and defence), and heading departments. He is a sought-after speaker, commentator and mentor in the IP community. If that isn’t enough, his comprehensive book is also informed by an in-depth survey of 25 UK IP practices. The result is a text that should become a seminal reference work. (more…)
IP due diligence from an in-house perspective
IPcopy and Keltie LLP were treated to an excellent presentation by Rob Carter of K2 IP on the subject of due diligence from an in-house perspective (Rob worked in Shell’s intellectual property legal team for over 25 years, the last 10 years as Associate General Counsel and as part of the Global IP leadership team).
A typical M&A transaction passes through a number of stages and IP plays a key role in many of these stages:
- Identification (to work out what IP is key?, how to extract value from the IP? etc.);
- Assessment (what information will need to go into the data room?, what IP assets does the target company have? what IP agreements will be needed?)
- Select (How do the IP due diligence results affect the proposed transaction?)
- Define (what IP-related agreements will be required – a brand licence, process licence, patent/trade mark assignments, etc?. What IP rights will a retained business need?)
- Execute (Negotiation and drafting of the IP-related agreements)
- Operate (the fun task of recording licences and assignments and transferring files)
- Asset Review (how did it go? How can we do better next time?)
Innovate UK – Funding competition for £5000 innovation voucher
Innovate UK is offering up to a £5,000 voucher for your business. Great! You’ll be able to get a good 100 pens from WHSmiths for that. Except unfortunately (well, probably fortunately), this is not a voucher you can spend in WHSmith, or any other stationery shop.
Innovate UK is offering the (up to) £5,000 voucher to start-up, micro, small and medium-sized businesses to spend on finding an expert to help with your idea or design, or to buy time and support for specialist equipment. The winning businesses are selected from a lottery draw out of the initial successful applications, with 100 vouchers available each round and four rounds per year. (more…)
Who Owns the Patent? Top Tip from a TM attorney
Today we have a little tip for anyone who has run into difficulties locating a patent or patent application that is mentioned in the context of a product being marketed under the words “patent pending”, “patented” or similar. Sometimes it is easy to locate the patent property in question because, for example, the company offering the product/service is also the patent owner. Sometimes however it can be difficult to find the correct patent property.
This may be because the company in question owns thousands of patents and patent applications (good luck for example identifying all the patent filings made in relation to the Apple Watch). However, in some cases this is because the company selling the “patented” product/service is not the patent owner.
Perhaps the patent/patent application is held by a different company in the same company group or perhaps the inventors own the patents. In such circumstances what else can be done to try and locate the patent/patent application in question? (more…)
Keltie Events: London Tech Week; 3D printing & Design Workshops for In-house Counsel
Keltie Events in June and July. Keltie LLP is pleased to be hosting a number of events over the next few weeks at our new offices at No. 1 London Bridge. Further details are below regarding (i) IP Clinics for London Technology Week; (ii) a 3D printing workshop for in-house counsel; and (iii) a Designs workshop for in-house counsel. (more…)
Celebrity Endorsements – I’ve got a George Foreman Grill
A George Foreman Grill
What’s the weirdest technology/IP related celebrity endorsement you’ve seen? This was the question that popped into IPcopy’s mind this morning when one of our work proximity associates messaged us from their holiday in San Francisco to tell us they’d seen an advert on TV of George Foreman promoting an inventor service company (advert below). (more…)
Patents and confidential information
Previous posts in our “general introduction to IP” series have provided an overview of different Intellectual Property Rights and have taken a closer look at issues arising in the area of Copyright and Designs. In this article however we are going to take a look at patents, protecting your invention and confidential information. (more…)
EQE Pre-Exam 2015 – Questions on cardboard cut out
[Update 11/5/15 – it appears from the comments on DeltaPatents results blog post that non-appealing candidates have also benefitted from the decision.]
IPcopy has just learned that the EQE Examination Board has sent out what appears to be a response letter to candidates who appealed their pre-exam results based on questions 15.2 and/or 17.3, rectifying their ‘fail’ decisions to passes. The letter means that the Examination Board has effectively accepted both true and false as correct for these questions where the main point of contention was whether the prior art disclosed that cardboard comprises wood fibres. However, this is not explicitly stated in the letter and, at time of writing, the marking scheme has not been updated. (more…)
A Lawyer at Man Utd: Patrick Stewart on His Career in Football
Left to right: Sean Cummings, Patrick Stewart and Colin Carroll
On Tuesday night Keltie hosted and sponsored a presentation by Patrick Stewart, Director of Legal & Business Affairs at Manchester United. The event was organised by LBDC (‘Lawyers Business Development Club’) and brilliantly introduced by LBDC’s CEO Colin Carroll and Keltie Partner, Sean Cummings. We had a full house and were sorry that several interested people could not get a place. However, for those who could not attend and as a memo for those who could, here is a brief account of the talk, that leaves out the witty anecdotes (sorry, I know it’s those you are after, but I don’t think it’s fair to publish them on a blog). (more…)
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