The UK Parliament has advised that the House of Commons approved the draft Unified Patent Court (Immunities and Privileges) Order 2017 yesterday. This draft Order must also be approved by the House of Lords then followed by the Privy Council, it will be debated by the House of Lords’ Grand Committee later this week.
For more information on the UPC please contact Caroline Warren on [email protected].
In the first of the new autumn Budget cycles, Chancellor Phillip Hammond laid out a “steady as she goes” Budget. There were some big announcements for those looking to get onto the housing ladder as well as much needed changes to the universal credit scheme.
There were also some welcome changes to R&D, Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS) and Venture Capital Trusts (VCTs). There are, however, a number of measures that were announced that are subject to debate and change with over 20 consultations and several changes scheduled for release in 2018.
Other areas we see as a welcome boost from the Chancellor are:
With the Brexit process now eight months in, we weren’t expecting too many rabbits out of the hat and with the OBR downgrading 2017 UK growth to 1.5% from the original prediction of 2%, there was not much wriggle room for big announcements.
The Budget aside, we are seeing some UK firms failing to take basic steps to protect and exploit their own intellectual property. In our recent survey in conjunction with the Manufacturing Technologies Association (MTA) we estimate the total amount lost thanks to UK manufacturing industry’s basic IP failures to be in the “millions”.
We as a firm urge the UK government to increase awareness that IP is an essential element to any business and if not protected or exploited effectively can be disastrous for a growing, entrepreneurial company. Basic, effective IP protection can be achieved easily and cheaply. For a company to fail to do so represents a loss of immediate value and puts future opportunities at risk. Read our survey here.
Food production is the biggest industry in the world and now, more than ever, the food technology sector is under immense pressure to meet the needs of a rapidly expanding population, both in population and waistline. Coupled to this need for improved efficiency is the requirement for healthier products that satisfy customer trends and government health policies.
The food industry is responding by providing cleaner and less wasteful processes as well as introducing ‘lite’ products such as sugar-free drinks, fat-free spreads, and low-salt alternatives. However, there is a balance between meeting these goals and achieving acceptable product taste and texture. Where such balance is met, an Intellectual Property (IP) opportunity is often missed.
In this interactive presentation, Mathys & Squire and industry experts discuss striking the right balance between taste, sugar, marketing, and product innovation, and the importance of protecting intellectual property in this highly competitive technical field.
This event will be ideal for CEO’s, NPD Managers, Category Managers, CTO’s, and those working in R&D in the food and beverage sector.
Please RSVP to Victoria Archdeacon by 6th December – [email protected]
Speakers include:
Date: Wednesday 13th December
Time: 17.00 registration, 17.30 – 19.30 interactive seminar, 19.30 – 20.30 drinks and networking
The food industry is currently facing challenges from many angles, including catering to new consumer trends, which include the increased popularity of vegetarianism, veganism, and the desire for greater availability of “free from” foods, in addition to meeting the requirements of new government guidelines relating to consumer health.
For example, Public Health England (PHE) has published new guidelines regarding sugar reduction in the food industry, aiming at reducing the amount of sugar in children’s food by 20% by 2020, with a 5% reduction in the first year. This presents a significant challenge for those in the food industry to comply with these guidelines whilst meeting consumer expectations relating to taste, colour and texture.
One organisation taking this challenge head-on is Lucozade Ribena Suntory (LRS), a UK soft drinks manufacturer, which has announced that it aims to reduce the sugar content of all of its existing and new beverages to less than 4.5g per 100 ml (compared to previous 10 to 11g per 100 ml). To date LRS has managed to remove a staggering 25,500 tons of sugar and 98 billion calories from the company’s annual drinks production and states that this dramatic change has not affected the taste of the soft drinks produced.
So how are manufacturers meeting these new government lead and consumer driven targets?
One main method of lowering sugars in food is to replace at least some of the sugar present with sweeteners. However, the incorporation of higher amounts of sweeteners can lead to the presence of an off-taste/bitter taste. It is known that the presence of artificial sweeteners within food products not only stimulates the human sweet taste receptors but also activates bitter taste receptors (TAS2Rs), causing this unpleasant “off-taste”. In order to overcome this disadvantage, the food industry has often turned to the use of a combination of sweeteners. Combinations of saccharin and cyclamate are known to produce higher sweetness levels with reduced bitter off-taste, however, the reasons as to why this effect is achieved by this specific combination were unknown, leaving those in the food industry to resort to a trial and error approach when formulating new/and or improved combinations of sweeteners.
Research by Behrens et al. has now shown that the combination of non-caloric sweetener cyclamate inhibits the two bitter taste receptors, TAS2R31 and TAS2R43, stimulated by saccharin and, in turn, saccharin suppresses the response of the human bitter taste receptor, TAS2R1, to cyclamate. Thus, it is this mutual suppression of bitter taste receptors which leads to the “higher sweetness levels with reduced bitter off-taste” observed.
Furthermore, the results of Behrens et al. indicate that “mixtures of two or more bitter compounds could exhibit lower overall bitterness as a result of inhibition between the substances”.
Whilst the current challenges faced by those in the food industry may have once seemed insurmountable, it is clear that current research, such as that discussed above, is helping to provide new insights into the issues faced. This can, in turn, lead the way to new and inventive methods of tackling these challenges. However, in a competitive industry where the total consumer expenditure on food, drink at catering in 2016 was around £206 billion, it is more vital than ever for companies to protect their innovations to prevent the possibility of reducing their market share.
In Mathys & Squire, our specialist food technology team works with clients to help identify, protect and commercialise their food intellectual property (IP), whether through identifying relevant chemical compounds in new food products, how food is manufactured or through packaging design and processes.
To find out more on how the Mathys & Squire’s food technology team can help your business, contact Laura Clews on [email protected]
For further information regarding the research by Behrens et al. please see the following article.
Encouraging acknowledgement from Rob Law (Trunki CEO and founder) of the importance of filing registered designs with “Trunki [now filing] a registered design for just about everything”, as reported here following a Design Week panel discussion attended by Mathys & Squire.
This follows the well-documented 2016 Supreme Court design infringement action brought by Trunki, which highlighted the importance of getting registered designs right. When used correctly, registered designs are an easy, effective and relatively inexpensive way of securing monopoly protection for designs.
For more information on designs and how Mathys & Squire can help you with protecting and commercialising your designs, please click here.
The German constitutional court has extended the deadline for comments in the constitutional case against the Unified Patent Court Agreement from 31 October to 31 December. We should therefore not expect to have an opinion on the case from the Court until the new year.
In the meantime, the UPC legislation has been moving through the Scottish legislative process but there does not seem to have been any movement from the UK government to progress the legislation towards ratification for the UK as a whole.
For more information about the UPC please click here or contact Caroline Warren.
Advocate General Wahl has issued his preliminary ruling on the interpretation of competition law in selective distribution agreements.
A luxury perfume manufacturer, Coty Germany, is in dispute with one of its authorised distributors regarding the sale of its products on Amazon.de. The terms and conditions of its distribution agreement prevent the sale of its products on online platforms.
The German Regional Court dismissed the claim in 2014 on the basis that the term was unenforceable as it infringed antitrust laws. The Appeal Court has now asked the Court of Justice of the European Union for guidance on whether an online sales ban infringes European competition laws.
In its referral to the ECJ, the German Court explains that distributors want to make use of the increasing growth in online sales and there is uncertainty as to whether manufacturers can legitimately restrict or ban online sales. In particular, there is uncertainty as to whether the protection of a brand’s luxury image is a valid reason for restricting the sale of goods via online platforms.
AG Wahl has disagreed with the German Regional Court and confirmed that a seller of luxury goods can lawfully restrict the sale of its products through conditions imposed on authorised retailers, including prohibiting the sale of products on online marketplaces.
He explained that in his view, selective distribution arrangements positively affect competition. Luxury brands use distribution systems to extend the geographic sale of goods and the restrictions they are able to put in place helps to maintain brand image. He went on to say that, if such restrictions were unlawful, brands would not risk the sale of goods through uncontrolled distribution agreements and competition would be diminished.
However, for selective agreements to be lawful the product must necessitate selective distribution, for example, due to its high quality or technical nature. Any restrictions must be objective and have criteria which are uniformly applied to all distributors.
We now await the Court of Justice’s judgment on the issue and whether they will follow AG Wahl’s common sense approach.
For more information, please contact the litigation team here.
Interim injunctions are a helpful tool to prevent potential infringement at an early stage of the litigation process, months before a court trial would take force. However, there are risks involved and applicants are usually required to provide an undertaking that they will cover any damages caused to the defendant as a result of the injunction should it be later found that their infringement claim is unfounded.
Napp Pharmaceutical Holdings Limited v Sandoz Limited and Others is an example of a case where a cross-undertaking in damages was given by Napp, in exchange for an interim injunction against Sandoz. Napp was unsuccessful in its patent infringement claim and the interim injunction against Sandoz was discharged.
Sandoz brought an application for damages caused by the interim injunction for over £100million. This figure was higher than the annual value of the relevant market, but was allegedly calculated on the basis that Sandoz was kept out of the market for 6 months, causing permanent damage to its business. Sandoz contended that the injunction prevented them from launching when they planned to and that they were entitled to the lost profit.
Napp requested further information relating to the profit margins and prices that Sandoz Limited claimed. Sandoz was unwilling to provide further detailed information as Napp was its closest competitor and Sandoz only gave a blended profit margin figure across all group companies.
The court agreed with Napp that the calculations and market growth figures were not explained adequately by Sandoz. In addition, Sandoz had failed to plead how profits were attributed to the companies within the group.
It will be interesting to see what damages Napp are ordered to pay to Sandoz. This case highlights that although interim injunctions can be helpful to stop damaging infringement, there are risks involved and a cross-undertaking in damages should not be given lightly.
For more information about this article and to see how Mathys & Squire can help, litigation associate, Abigail Nicholls.
We are delighted to announce that we have now achieved ISO 9001 & 14001 accreditation. (International Organization for Standardization).
By meeting the standards of ISO 9001, the firm has shown commitment to providing a high level of customer service, delivering consistent performance and continuously improving. ISO 14001 focuses on environmental management, and recognises that we are committed to improving environmental performance through efficient use of resources and reduction of waste.
We are proud of being an environmentally aware firm, and are pleased to be able to formalise our processes and gain recognition for our commitment to delivering a first-class service to our clients.
To find out more about ISO 9001 and ISO 14001, please click here.
Mathys & Squire are thrilled to see that their client, ZapGo recently received notable media coverage for their battery innovation that is set to revolutionise, not only the automotive industry, but also how we charge our everyday home appliances.
The British start-up company developed nano carbon supercapacitors that could mean the rapid charging of gadgets and electric vehicles is imminent, and that it could take a matter of seconds to do so. The BBC has reported that though the current version is unable to store a substantial amount of power, later versions of the carbon-ion supercapacitor batteries will.
Currently, lithium-ion batteries, found in most smartphones and electronics, take a significate amount of time to charge, however the supercapacitors developed by ZapGo can withstand thousands of charges thanks to less moving parts, meaning a portable charger can be fully powered in just 5 minutes. Which ultimately means you can simply zap and go!
To watch the BBC World News report, please click here.
