First published in November 2022, updated April 2024 to reflect new statistics Let’s start with some interesting numbers, before we move on to some strategy for rapidly reducing your company’s tax rate plus a real-life example: The first number, 10, is the tax rate that your company can apply for under the UK Government’s surprisingly little used ‘Patent Box’ scheme. So, rather than a UK company paying the current 19% to 25% on all profits, this can be reduced to 10% on all attributable profits for those savvy enough to know how (and hopefully by the time you finish reading this article, you ..read more

To make it less costly for individuals and small companies to file a European patent application, the European Patent Office (EPO) is discounting some of its official fees. Despite Brexit, the UK remains part of the European patent system, so this is good news for patentees seeking protection in the UK as well as in mainland Europe. The European Patent Office made the following recent statement: “Fees for European patent applications are changing from 1 April 2024. These include reductions for small companies and even the abolition of some fees. Internal renewal fees are rising by less than t ..read more

  Admittedly, perhaps not the most elegant title ever devised, but a patent does not grant an eternal monopoly over an invention. A granted patent will always lapse or expire eventually, normally by 20 years from the date it was originally filed, and plenty of patents permanently lapse earlier than that for a variety of reasons. With that in mind, you might rightly wonder: is it safe to copy the invention that was in the patent? The answer is not as straightforward you might think. Is the patent actually dead? The legal status of a patent or application is usually publicly available on a ..read more

It sounds like a simple enough question, but the answer is that ‘it depends!’ UK and European law has excluded from patent protection ‘a program for a computer as such’ since 1977, but the scope of that exclusion has been hotly contested for just about as long. Where we seem to have got to, 45 years on, is that software can be protected if it makes a ‘technical contribution’, that is, if it constitutes a technical solution to a technical problem. What is ‘technical’? That’s hard to define, but some examples on either side of the line may help. On the one hand there is software which controls ..read more

A Career in IP can be both fascinating and rewarding, even if it isn’t a career path that you set your sights on from the start.  In fact, as Albright IP Associate and Trade Mark Attorney Joel Weston shows, you can be successful even if your route into the field doesn’t follow the standard path…   Q How did you get into IP & Trade Marks? As I cast my mind back, I would certainly say my journey into IP and Trade Marks didn’t follow the standard route. I left school at 16 without many GCSEs. I really didn’t know what I wanted to do, but as I’d always been good at science, I settle ..read more

Registering an internet domain name is cheap and simple. But what happens if someone gets there first with your business name? It would be better to avoid the problem altogether, and we would always recommend checking domain availability and getting trade marks registered in advance of a public rebrand. For longer than most companies have even had websites, speculators have been trying to snap up domain names, often in the hope of selling them back to somebody who actually has a real business associated with that name for a great deal more than the initial cost of registration. Fortunately, t ..read more

A new practice rule at the UKIPO requires a UK-based address for service to be put in place for UK designations of International Trade Mark & Design Registrations. At present, there is no strict requirement for a UK address for service to be in place for all direct national Applications/Registrations, but there is a strong push towards this being insisted upon. The intention behind the practice change is to bring the UK into line with the EUIPO approach and accords with the end of the extended post Brexit transition period, due to end on 31 December 2023. Up until recently, the UKIPO was ..read more

The devil makes work for idle hands. Whilst contemplating lunch at my desk, I found myself drawn to the UK Intellectual Property Office (UKIPO) opinion service website to see whether anything new or interesting had been fought over recently. To my surprise, I see that during the first half of 2023, only five requests for opinions had been requested, one of which was withdrawn, and the other four had no decision issued at the time of writing. This is compared with 28 opinions issued during 2022. What has happened to my lunchtime light relief? What opinions are available? I’m getting ahead of m ..read more

There is a lot to entertain the curious follower of patent law in the High Court’s judgment in Shenzhen Carku v The Noco Company[1]. A successful revocation based on lack of inventive step, a finding of non-infringement based on the elusive third Actavis question (I have already written about that one), and more. This post is about the successful claim in unjustified threats – the Court found that statements made to Amazon were actionable threats, and since the patent turned out to be invalid, those threats were unjustified. Amazon, eBay, and other similar online platforms will generally have ..read more

Medical technology, referred to as MedTech, is a sector which relates to the application of technology towards improvements in human health and quality of life. It is a very broad term, covering simple products such as wound dressings, glasses, or walking aids, but also goes as far as covering hi-tech software-driven services and products, pharmaceuticals, and in vivo implants. Innovators in the MedTech sector can therefore find it difficult to obtain good guidance about how to approach an IP strategy for their business. There are, however, some guiding principles which can be followed. Comme ..read more