We were delighted to exhibit at Sports Merchandise and Licensing Show 2015 on 16th November. The show returned for its third consecutive year and took place at Stamford Bridge, Chelsea FC. It is an important event in the sports merchandise industry, and a great opportunity to discuss products and services.
To read more about our work in this sector please click here.
Laura West, Associate at Mathys & Squire commented, “This is our second year attending this fantastic event, which is becoming an unmissable event for all those in the sports merchandise and licensing arena. It was a great opportunity to network with a wide range of organisations within the sector whilst supporting our longstanding client, Chelsea Football Club”.
https://sportsmerchandiseandlicensingshow.com/
On 6th November Mathys & Squire held a joint workshop in collaboration with Porzio Bromberg & Newman, Y.P. Lee Mock & Partners and Hibiki Law firm. The meeting took place at the Four Seasons Hotel Shenzhen, and over 80 delegates attended.
Five international speakers presented to Chinese businesses who would like to, or already do, trade with the US, Korea, Japan and Europe, and considered the ways in which foreign intellectual property law affect this. It was an interesting and informative workshop that advised delegates on the important of Intellectual Property, provided tips for selling to different markets, and recommendations as to how to reduce risk.
In November, Graham Spenceley, Miranda Kent, Kevin Heritage and Philip Barnes attended Innovate 2015 in Old Billingsgate Market. It was a great opportunity to meet and network with innovative UK companies. Philip was also one of two IP experts at the show, so was available for one-to-one meetings on the 10th November.
Innovate is a two day ‘spotlight on innovation’, which brings over 3000 of the UK’s businesses together to network and explore ideas.
https://www.events.ukti.gov.uk/innovate-uk-2015
It has been announced that Chinese companies will be offered generous tax breaks by moving to a new development zone in Manchester. It is hoped that the project will attract Chinese companies to the UK. Two new office buildings will be reserved for Chinese companies wanting to relocate.
We were delighted to exhibit at Advanced Engineering 2015 this November. The show took place at the NEC in Birmingham, and attracted thousands of visitors from manufacturing and supply chain. We are extremely involved in this sector, and for more information please click here.
Andrew White, Associate at Mathys & Squire commented, “The Advanced Engineering Expo was a large, two-day event held at the NEC in Birmingham and was dedicated to the fields of aeronautical, composite, automotive and performance metals engineering. Over the course of the two days we had a lot of visitors to our stand and had some really interesting conversations.”
http://www.advancedengineeringuk.com/
We attended an ‘Open Discussion on the Patentability of Human Embryonic Stem Cells in Europe’ held on 22 October in London.
Dr. Aliki Nichogiannopoulou of the EPO gave a very interesting presentation on cases heard by the EPO Technical Board of Appeal concerning applications in this technical area. Importantly, she confirmed the change in EPO examining practice that a date of 5 June 2003 is now accepted as a date from which hES cells were available without embryo destruction.
The Design Council have their published their findings following an extensive piece of research conducted into the value of the design industry. The 2015 report, entitled ‘The Design Economy’, considered factors such as gross value added (GVA), and statistics relating to productivity, turnover, employment and exports of goods and services. The report aims to examine just how much design contributes to the financial performance of businesses, and specifically whereabouts in the UK design makes a signification contribution to the local economy.
The report found that that :
- The design economy generated £71.7bn in gross value added (GVA), equivalent to 7.2% of total GVA.
- Between 2009 -2013 the design economy GVA grew at a faster rate than the UK average.
- Workers with a design element to their work were 41% more productive than the average.
- In 2013, the total value of exports where design had made a key contribution was £34bn. This constituted 7.3% of total UK exports in 2013.
To read more about the report’s finding please see the link below.
http://www.designcouncil.org.uk/resources/report/design-economy-report
The OECD have just released the final deliverables of their Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) Action Plan. This includes new guidelines in relation to the implementation of IP Boxes such as the UK Patent Box Regime. They will require countries with IP Boxes to implement the so-called “nexus” approach from 1 July 2016. Largely the news seems to be good for both granted patents and importantly for patents still pending at that time, as rules allow grandfathering of the original more generous UK Patent Box regime for companies that qualify for the regime at 30 June 2016 and those grandfathering rules are likely to apply even to pending patents.
HMRC are now seeking views on how to legislate Patent Box, and consultation is open until 4 December 2015.
The EPO has announced that from 1 November 2015 it will be possible to validate European patents in Moldova, bringing the potential country coverage of a European patent to 42 countries.
Any European or international patent application filed on or after 1 November 2015 is deemed to include a request for validation in Moldova. However, it will be necessary to pay a “validation fee” of €200 within the same deadline as for paying the designation fee, the fees for the Extension States and the fee for Morocco.
European patents validated in Moldova will confer the same protection as Moldovan national patents and will be subject to Moldovan patent law
Moldova is not a member of European Patent Organisation; rather, this development is the result of an agreement signed on 16 October 2013 by the President of the EPO and the Director General of the State Agency on Intellectual Property of the Republic of Moldova.
Tunisia has also signed a validation agreement with the EPO, but this agreement is yet to take effect.
If you would like to know more about this issue or have any queries, please do not hesitate to contact us on +44 (0)207 830 0000 or [email protected].
unified-patent-court.org/…/UPC-Rules-of-Procedure.pdf
Yesterday saw another step forward for the UPC with the publication of the final Rules of Procedure. The full publication can be found here.
