About IP Law

With the laws around Intellectual Property and Information Technology changing all the time, keeping pace is hard enough. But knowing the law isn’t enough. You need to know what those changes are going to mean for your clients. The big picture, the fine detail, the impact and the next steps.

Copyright

Practical information about copyright, moral rights, performers’ rights and rights in performances. Get precedent copyright assignments and licences here.

Trade marks

Practical information about trade marks, passing off, geographical indications and anti-counterfeiting. Get precedent trade mark assignments and licences here.

Patents

Practical information about patents and supplementary protection certificates. Get precedent patent assignments and licences here.

IP disputes

Get guidance on strategic and practical steps for dealing with IP disputes, including ways of trying to avoid them in the first place. Our case analysis highlights points from judgments so you can be confident at work.

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Latest IP Q&As

Q&As
If a building plot with planning permission is purchased, is there an inherent right to build according to the plans and specifications of the planning permission or would such use constitute infringement of the design rights and copyright in the plans? If permission is required, how and from whom can permission be sought?
Q&As
A 50% shareholder has registered a trade mark in the name of the company in which it owns shares, without having been authorised by the director to do so. Is the shareholder able to take such action on behalf of the company? Can the company be bound to the registration?
Q&As
Can a third party use other persons logos brands that are registered as trademarks and classed as intellectual property for promoting their services? If not what action can be taken to ask the third party to remove their logos/brands?
Q&As
Where an attorney is purporting to execute on behalf of a number of principals, is it essential (as opposed to merely good practice) for there to be multiple execution blocks or is it sufficient for the attorney to execute once only but make it clear in the execution block that he/she is doing so as attorney for multiple principals?
Q&As
For copyright to subsist in a literary work, among other requirements, it must be ‘recorded in writing or otherwise’ (CDPA 1988, s 3 (2)). If a work is created in the cloud (hosted on a server based in, say, India), how will this affect the UK’s test for copyright subsistence?

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