Will Smith#8036

Will Smith

Legal Director, Bird & Bird
Will is a Legal Director at Bird & Bird, specialising in advising companies involved in technology development both in the UK and internationally.
 
Will advises clients on contentious and non-contentious matters relating to a wide range of technologies with a particular emphasis on patent and confidential information disputes.
 
Will has also spent time working in house supporting the development of hydrogen-based decarbonisation solutions for the mining sector both at a FTSE 100 company and a pre-revenue start-up. 
Contributed to

1

Trade secrets and confidential information—protection and enforcement
Trade secrets and confidential information—protection and enforcement
Practice Notes

This Practice Note sets out the protection available for trade secrets and confidential information in a commercial context, in particular in cases where technical information is involved. It outlines the law under the Trade Secrets (Enforcement, etc) Regulations 2018, SI 2018/597 and its interplay with common law principles of breach of confidence and gives examples of commercial situations in which disputes might arise. It includes details of the way in which breach of confidence interacts with infringement of intellectual property rights and other causes of action. It considers the definitions of ‘confidential information’, ‘trade secrets’ and ‘know-how’ and how these concepts are dealt with in a commercial context. It reviews the case law relating to secondary liability, common design and knowledge of breach, as well as considering the position regarding subconscious use, derivative use and reverse engineering. The Practice Note contains details of the remedies that are available for breach of confidence, including injunctions, springboard injunctions, damages, account of profits, delivery up and destruction.

Practice Area

Panel

  • Contributing Author

Qualified Year

  • 2013

Experience

  • Bird & Bird LLP (2011 - 2021)
  • Anglo American plc (2021 - 2023)
  • First Mode, Inc (2023 - 2025)

Qualification

  • Postgraduate Diploma in Intellectual Property Law, University of Oxford (2015)

Education

  • Chemistry, University of Oxford (2008)
  • LLM (Law), Kaplan Law School (2011)

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