Jane Lambert
Yesterday I received an email from DIT North West stating:
"Working closely with our colleagues in both Yorkshire & Humber and the North East, we have created a calendar of 16 trade missions, covering various markets, trade shows and exhibitions to support your business to win sales overseas."The email contained details of trade missions to California, Amsterdam, Cologne, Dusseldorf, China and Boston between 24 Sept and 28 Nov 2017 for the healthcare, food and drink and other industries.
Should any of my readers in Yorkshire or the Humber wish to learn more about those missions, I have written a short article on them entitled Powerhouse Trade Missions in IP Northwest. Readers will find in that article a link to the Eventbrite page which contains details of each of the missions with links to the each of the mission Eventbrite pages.
I wish anyone whom goes on any of those missions the very best of luck and would urge them to have regard for their trade secrets and designs. They may find the following extract useful:
"If you plan to go on any of those trade missions, be careful not to disclose anything that you might wish to patent, register as a design or otherwise keep under wraps except in confidence (see Duty of Confidence). However, there is a year's grace period for design registration in Britain and the rest of the EU (see Registered Designs and Registered Community Designs) and don't forget the international exhibition exception provided by s.2 (4) (c) of the Patents Act 1977. Make sure that any non-disclosure or confidentiality agreement is to be construed and enforced in accordance with English law. We are harmonizing our trade secret law across the EU with the Trade Secrets Directive which will come into effect o 9 June 2018 just before Britain flounces out of the EU but we are not there yet (see my article on The Trade Secrets Directive 7 July 2016 NIPC Law).
You must also be aware of the ease with which it is possible for IPR owners to get without notice injunctions just before international exhibitions in Germany and some other countries and serve the orders on the first day (see the penultimate paragraph of Pre-Action Correspondence: What to do if you get a Stroppy Letter ....... or worse 4 Aug 2017 NIPC Law). That nearly happened to one of my clients not long ago. The antedate in Germany is to get a German lawyer to file a Schutzschrift ("protective brief") with the court in which the application is likely to be made setting our reasons why such an order should not be granted. You should also take a look at the arbitration schemes that exist in Italy and Switzerland (see my article Resolving IP Disputes at Trade Fairs 1 June 2017)."Should anybody wish to discuss any of these matters, call me on 020 7404 5252 during office hours or send me a message on my contact form.
Further Reading
Northern Powerhouse Index
