IP Yorkshire

MMI v CellXion - a patent case with local interest

2012-01-28T22:59:00.003Z

I've just blogged about the Court of Appeal's decision in MMI Research v CellXion and Others. The reason I mention it here is that one of the defendants, Datong Plc, is based in Leeds.

According to its press release, Datong "provides a range of advanced high performance covert intelligence gathering solutions, supplying defence, homeland security and law enforcement agencies around the world." It employs 95 staff and distributes its goods in 37 countries, Group turnover in the year ended 30 Sepr 2011 was £11.75 million.

Datong was joined to the action as the re-seller of mobile telephone detection equipment which is used by police and intelligence services to monitor wrongdoers' movements.

The case had twice been before the Patents Court and twice before the Court of Appeal. More

Yorkshire's Links with China

2012-01-24T02:09:00.001Z

I have just returned from the Chinese New Year Show at Sheffield City Hall and was bowled over. It was an excellent show with acrobats, dancers, dragons, face changers, jugglers, pandas and even acrobats on roller skates. The night before I attended the Liverpool Chinese Business Network's VIP Dinner in Liverpool which also had a show (see Jane Lambert "Welcome to the Year of the Dragon" IP North West 23 Jan 2012). That was very good but the Sheffield spectacular was even better. Everyone knows that there have been Chinese communities in Liverpool and Manchester for generations. What is less well known is that there is also a Chinese community in Yorkshire. Its links with China are at least as strong as the North West's.

One of the most important connections between China and Yorkshire is the Confucius Institute of Sheffield University. This is an international collaboration between the University of Sheffield, the Office of Chinese Language Council International (commonly known as Hanban), Beijing Language and Culture University and Nanjing University. Its mission includes a number of objectives the first of which is to be "a focal point for China-related activities in Sheffield and the broader region of the Midlands and Northern England."

Another connection will be the "Visions of China" theme park which is to be built in Rotherham. This £100 million project will include ornamental lakes and gardens; retail outlets; a Shaolin temple and cultural centre, a theatre, restaurants, spa, pavilions and an hotel. The project will be undertaken by the Chinese government.

In "Happy New Year - this could be the year the recovery starts" I argued that China and other rapidly growing emerging economises would lift us from recession starting this year. The "Visions of China" investment is one sign that that is happening. Other signs include China Telecom's MVNO and Huawei's continuing investment in the UK.

As the State Intellectual Property Office of China is now the second largest recipient of patent applications according to the WIPO, demand for Chinese technology is likely to increase from the UK. Should you require advice or assistance in drafting licences and technology transfer agreements, do not hesitate to call me on 0113 320 3232.

FabLabs for Yorkshire: IntegreatPlus Learning Lunch

2012-01-18T09:57:00.001Z

Following on from my progress report on FabLabs for Yorkshire which I published on 16 Jan 2012, I have just been reminded of IntegreatPlus's Learning Lunch: What are these FabLabs? Personalised Manufacturing in Sheffield on 23 Feb 2012 at 12:30.

The speakers will be Eddie Kirkby of the Manufacturing Institute and James Wallbank of Access Space Network. I have heard Eddie at Daresbury and he speaks very well.

The lunch will take place at

Creative Sheffield

First Floor

The Fountain Precinct

Balm Green

Sheffield

S1 2JA

The event is free thanks to sponsorship from the Institute for Economic Development and Creative Sheffield but space is limited. To reserve your space contact rob.cullen@integreatplus.com.

FabLabs for Yokshire: Progress Report

2012-01-16T21:49:00.002Z

On 9 Nov 2011 I reported that plans were in hand for a FabLab in Keighley (see "A FabLab for Keighley"). The consortium behind the project has just published a website at http://www.fablabairedale.org so we now know a little more about it.

According to the "About Us" page:

"Fab Lab is the first stage of an ambitious project to create a Centre of Manufacturing Excellence within Airedale serving Bradford District and the surrounding parts of the Leeds City Region. Fab Lab Airedale is a collaborative venture between the Airedale Partnership, Bradford Council and Leeds City College, with support from The Manufacturing Institute. The Fab Lab Airedale will operate as a not for profit company limited by guarantee. Any profits generated through the running of the Fab Lab will be reinvested in the aims of the project which are to promote innovation and excellence within the local manufacturing and related sectors."

We also know that the FabLab will be located at Dalton Mills. I drove past the site on Saturday and was very impressed.

We still don't know when the Airedale FabLab will open. Early 2012 according to the website. I called the number on the website this morning and was put through to a lady at the city council. She could tell me nothing more than that it would be soon.

The next FabLab in Yorkshire is likely to be in Sheffield. A meeting took place in Sheffield in July 2009 at which Eddie Kirby of the Manufacturing Institute announced plans for a chain of FabLabs around the UK and this was confirmed by Professor Gerschenfeld himself when he was interviewed on BBC Radio on 14 Nov 2011. There was a vigorous debate on a FabLab for South Yorkshire in the Sheffield City Region Linkedin group before Christmas.

Elsewhere in the country there appear to be plans for FabLabs in Brighton and Troon. All these projects are supported by a group of enthusiasts known as "FabLabsUK" who have set up a website and Meetup group.

As always, If anybody has any questions or comments, he or she can contact me through my contact form, Facebook, Linkedin, Xing or twitter or call me on 0113 320 3232 .

MAD Bradford

2012-01-14T09:09:00.002Z

Not riots! Not the decaying Odeon. Not the massive building site in the city centre. But Media and Digital Bradford which held its inaugural meeting at Gumption Centres on 12 Jan 2012. I was there as were folk from the arts, the Council, the media, the Media Museum, the University and more geeks tham you can shake a USB stick at.

Before it closed last year Bmedia had done a lot of good things for the media and digital industries in Bradford:
:

the alternate third Thursday meetings with a guest speaker and pizza;
Bradford OpenCoffee in Shipley;
a very good Bar Camp in Nov 2009;
my regular intellectual property clinic at Gumption every third Thursday;
the courses and seminars that it arranged;
the information on bids and tenders that it circulated; and
its contacts with other groups in the city such as FABRIC and FabLab..

The end of Bmedia was a bit of a blow for Bradford.

MAD Bradford is a very different sort of grouping. Although the proposed format for regular monthly meetings and networking is very similar it is much less structured. Before the meeting we were welcomed with a pot of vegetable chili prepared by Mrs. David Robertson Brown (for which many thanks) and a voucher for a free cup of tea or coffee.

The meeting followed the BarCamp formula. Members of the audience were invited to propose topics for discussion. These ranged from the local authority's super-fast broadband "Connected Cities" bid presented by Dave Melling, rural programmes co-ordinator of Bradford MDC, the image of Bradford, what the University can do for us and we for the University, html5 and even the future of the internet. Matt Fielding divided us into three groups to discuss those topics and sent us away to different parts of the building. These groups quickly coalesced into two which I would loosely describe as the developers and the creatives. I tagged on to the "creatives" group in the reception area which discussed a number of interesting proposals for future activities.

These ideas are likely to be developed further in the "MAD Bradford" Linkedin group which has recently been formed.

One thing is for certain. Any new product created by members of the group will require design right, registered design or patent protection, Every new brand will require legal protection whether under the law of passing off or the registration of a trade mark. There will be demand for advice and representation on IP and technology law which members of IP Yorkshire will continue to supply.

Biddleston to talk to Leeds Inventors Group

2012-01-08T14:21:00.002Z

Inventor, product developer and former school master John Biddleston will talk to Leeds Inventors Group this month. His presentation to the Sheffield club was very well received indeed. For more information about this presentation, see the article in my Inventors Club blog.

John is an excellent speaker so you are in for a treat. The talk will take place on 18 Jan 2012 at 18:00 at Central Library, Calverley Street, Leeds, LS1 3AB. For further information call Ged Doonan or Stef Stephenson on 0113 247 8266 or email piu@leeds.gov.uk.

Talk to Halifax Law Society: Trade Marks and Passing Off

2012-01-04T12:44:00.003Z

I have been asked to talk about trade marks, passing off, geographical indications and the legal protection of brands generally to Halifax Law Society at the White Swan Hotel in Halifax on Tuesday, 20 March 2012 between 13:30 and 15:30.

My talk will cover the following topics:

Definitions: what is a brand and what is a trade mark;
Common law protection of brands;
Trade mark registration;
TRIPS, Paris and Madrid;
Trade mark directives;
Trade Marks Act 1994;
Community trade marks;
Registration in the Trade Mark Registry and at OHIM;
Objecting to a registration: third party observations, opposition, invalidity and revocation;
Infringement proceedings in the Chancery Division and the Patents County Court;
Passing off;
Geographical Indications;
Domain names; and
Company Names Tribunal.

For further information, my contact at Halifax Law Society is Carol Stevenson of Finn Gledhill on 01422 330000 or enquiries@finngledhill.co.uk but the Halifax Law Society blog also invites enquiries to David Swarbrick (@dslippy) at dwarb@gmail.com on 0795 457 9992. I am also happy to be contacted on 0113 320 3232 or through my contact form and I shall pass on any enquiries to Carol or David.

Finally, I wish you all a happy New Year.

Ballet and Intellectual Property - my Excuse for reviewing "Beauty and the Beast"

2011-12-31T13:13:00.009Z

One of my passions is ballet. In a funny sort of way I owe my career in intellectual property to ballet because I discovered Lincoln's Inn while looking for free parking within walking distance of the Royal Opera House one matinee.

There are some connections between intellectual property and ballet which I discussed in some detail in "Cracking Nuts - Copyright in Choreography". That article was my excuse to review David Nixon's "Nutcracker" in my IP North West blog on 24 Nov 2011. As Yorkshire folk don't like to read stuff that's been served up before I have to think of something new now. Having squeezed the Massine v de Basil lemon dry in my other article I've decided to review Northern Ballet's "Beauty and the Beast" which I saw at The Grand Theatre in Leeds last night. I shall also mention some of the company's services to Yorkshire business as well as some of things that Yorkshire business can do for Northern Ballet.

Beauty and the Beast is not an easy story to choreograph. Scottish Ballet had a go with Thea Musgrave's score many years ago. I reviewed for "Aien" (St Andrews University student newspaper) when it was premiered at The King's Theatre in Edinburgh in 1969. Ballet Cymru also seems to have had a version in its repertoire. Another link with IP, incidentally, since Ballet Cymru is based in Newport, the same town as the Intellectual Property Office. And, of course, there is the Birmingham Royal Ballet's version. But none of those versions has ever achieved the popularity of works like Coppelia, Giselle, Nutcracker, Sleeping Beauty or Swan Lake. Will David Nixon's version do any better? The answer is that I am just not sure.

Beauty and the Beast has an awkward story line with two sets of main characters:

Prince Orian who gets turned into a wild beast; and
a King Lear type figure with three daughters (one of whom is "Beauty") who are turned out of their house by the bailiffs as a result of the girls' extravagance and end up in an old bus in a forest where the old man gets mugged by the beast.

There are also strong roles for good and wicked fairies and the beast's steward. There's also a mishmash of music from Bizet, Poulenc and Saint-Saëns. No wonder my companion (a considerable artist in her own field) and I asked ourselves what was going on in the interval.

Beauty and the Beast is also a very big ballet demanding a very big stage for Duncan Hayler's set. The Grand is an intimate theatre not ideally suited for ballet and its stage did not do it justice.

As for Nixon's choreography the first two acts reminded me of early McMillan - works like Anastasia which are not performed very often nowadays for a reason. But the last Act reminded me of Balanchine and I think it was that Act which saved the ballet. The pas de deux between Beauty - danced exquisitely by Martha Leebolt - and the beast showed just what the choreographer can do. Also impressive were Victoria Sibson and Hannah Bateman who danced the fairies, Hironeo Takahashi, the beast's servant and the coryphées, Michela Paolacci, Ayana Kanda, Christie Duncan and Isabella Gasparini who were four sprites. The last Act of the ballet could well stand as a work in its own right. I hope to see that Act many times again but I would happily skip the first two acts with its old bus and bailiffs.

Before I turn to Northern Ballet's business services and how to sponsor a dancer, I should mention I-Candy, a gorgeous confiserie, patisserie and ice cream parlour a few doors down and on the same side of the road. My friend had one of their waffles with hot white chocolate and I had some chocolate cheesecake thereby undoing all the good work in the gym a few hours earlier. Well it is Christmas.

Now back to business. Northern Ballet's building can be hired for conferences, exhibitions and even a Girl Geek dinner. Are you listening Imran? You'd have a sell out. Here's a video about the place.

Businesses can also sponsor the company as a whole or indeed individual dancers. You will need a good IP lawyer for that. I shall certainly sponsor a dancer just as soon as I can. I hope that some of my readers - especially my patent and trade mark agent clients - will do the same.

Happy New Year folks.

Bradford Rising Stars: a local opportunity to implement Hargreaves

2011-12-09T23:02:00.012Z

One of the recommendations of Prof. Ian Hargreaves in his review of intellectual property and growth published earlier in the year was for the IPO to draw up plans to improve accessibility of the IP system to smaller companies who will benefit from it. He added that this should involve access to lower cost providers of integrated IP legal and commercial advice.

I discussed this recommendation at some length in my article "Does Hargreaves say anything new?" (24 June 2011):

"The review recognized that SME want is an integrated source of advice which combines commercial and technical insight with legal expertise, helping them to commercialize, as well as protect, their IP. It also found that such advice is not always available from patent agents. That was just the sort of service that many – though, alas, by no means all - Business Link advisers used to provide. Hargreaves called upon the IPO to “draw up plans to improve accessibility of the IP system to smaller companies who will benefit from it”. The review added that “this should involve access to lower cost providers of integrated IP legal and commercial advice.” Again, these are worthy aspirations but there is a limit to what the IPO can do. The 13 PATlib libraries may be a better platform. Many such as Leeds, Sheffield and, of course, the British Library run IP clinics and inventors’ clubs. They also hold considerable collections of marketing and general business as well as legal materials which they make available to the general public. Unfortunately, our second city no longer offers the services of a specialist patent librarian and Liverpool library is closed for refurbishment."

The day before the IPO announced a package of measures to implement that recommendation I was at Bradford Chamber of Commerce meeting the Rising Stars team. The Rising Stars programme is a project funded by the European Regional Development Fund and Bradford City Council and administered by the Chamber to "help a select group of Bradford businesses to push ahead and grow." This help includes "a free, dedicated and personal advice service to entrepreneurs and established businesses within the Bradford area."

I was invited to meet the team because several had clients with intellectual property issues who had difficulty in obtaining affordable advice from patent and trade mark agents and reliable advice from anybody else. As Professor Hargreaves recognized at paragraph 9.9 of his review

"At present, long established IP legal advisors (for example, patent attorneys) seldom offer expertise on the commercial aspects of IP. Conversely, IP advisors with a business focus lack the detailed legal knowledge to assist SMEs in obtaining IPRs."

I had a very good discussion with the advisers. After explaining the difference between intellectual assets and intellectual property and the different types of legal protection that were available for brands, designs, technology and creative works, I outlined the services that were available for artists, designers and inventors and entrepreneurs and investors. I told them that these services were listed nationally and regionally on my Inventors Club website and updated regularly in my Inventors Club blog. I mentioned some of the services that I offer nationally through my NIPC Clinics and locally through my Third Thursday clinics at Gumption.

In Q & A I was asked precisely what I did and how my services differed from "pay-tent" attorneys and solicitors. After explaining as patiently as I could that the word for the monopoly of a new invention is pronounced "pat - tent" ("pat" as in grass at least as pronounced locally) and that "pay-tent" refers to the type of leather used for court shoes, I described the services offered by each of those professions. I explained how the relationship between patent and trade mark attorneys, solicitors and the patent bar was analogous to the relationship between general practitioners and consultant physicians and surgeons in medicine.

In answer to a question from Peter Briggs, who was determined to put this airy, fairy, uppity lady barrister in her place, as to when exactly he should send a client to me, I replied that I was a member of a referral profession and that in an ideal world clients should come to me through patent agents and solicitors. However, I added, I had noted that this was far from a perfect world and that by the time clients came to me it was often too late to help them. Sometimes they had spent all their money on applications for patents that they could not afford to renew let alone enforce or they had been to solicitors or other professional advisers on a learning curve who had tried to issue patent infringement claims in the local district registry or county court. That was why I had set up the clinics and inventors clubs to make sure that as many members of our local business community as possible get as much advice as possible at as early a stage as possible.

Mr. Briggs asked whether filling in the on-line form would oblige inventors to disclose their inventions. "No it wouldn't" I assured him. "It would simply enable me to find the best sort of help for them." I had a panel of experts with whom I had worked in the past and whom I could trust to do a good job at a reasonable rate:

patent agents such as Michael Harrison, Alex Tomkinson and Tom Hutchinson;
trade mark agents like Carin Burchill, Paul Dyson and Phil Cooper;
US IP attorneys like Toni Tease and Doug Isenberg;
specialist solicitors like Kate Reid and James Love;
product design consultants like Richard Hall, John Biddleston and Alex Smith;
brand consultants like Nick Burton

and all sorts of other specialists whose expertise runs from China to ceramics. "Well won't those folk charge" asked Mr. Briggs. "Only after they have identified the problem, decided whether they can help the client and quoted for the job" I replied.

The time at Bradford passed very quickly and, before we knew it, it was up. In an email to Carolyn Coleman who chaired the meeting I mentioned some of the other resources that I have not mentioned in this post such as my presentations on Slideshare, articles on J D Supra, blog on IP developments in the Gulf and, of course, my website.

Should anyone want to discuss this post or IP rights in general he or she should call me on 0113 320 3232 or use my contact form.

Latest IP Yorkshire Newsletter

2011-11-23T21:38:00.002Z

The latest IP Yorkshire newsletter is out with articles on

the LEP Summit in Leeds on 9 Sept 2011
FabLabs for Yorkshire
injunctions against ISPs
IP law in the Gulf
Gumption
guidance for web designers
inventors, and
IP dispute resolution.

Earlier issues of the newsletter are archived. You can download them by clicking the links to the sidebar.

"Cost Effective Product Development" Leeds Inventors Group: 16 Nov 2011

2011-11-23T20:21:00.003Z

Alex Smith's talk to Leeds Inventors Group "Cost Effective Product Development" on 16 Nov 2011 was one of the best presentations we have ever had. Alex is a product designer, a director of Trig Creative of Horsforth near Leeds and a visiting lecturer of Huddersfield and Leeds Met Universities.His talk explored the design process, getting a product to market, finding funding and a whole lot more. He also gave examples of some of his work. You will find his slides below.

If you want to contact Alex he is at

TRIG Creative Ltd
Dale House, 64 Fink Hill,
Horsforth, Leeds,
Yorkshire
LS18 4DH

Telephone: +44 (0) 113 258 0110

email: design@trigcreative.com

View more presentations from Jane Lambert

Gumption Centres at Leeds City Varieties

2011-11-15T11:31:00.006Z

Gumption Centres are a set of serviced offices in the centre of Bradford started and run by my good friends David Robertson Brown and John Sims nearly 5 years ago. Just under 2 years ago David and John branched out into VoIP and virtual office services with GB Offices. Yesterday, I checked out their latest venture which is meeting room accommodation at Leeds City Varieties.

Leeds City Varieties is one of our few surviving and thriving music halls (not unlike Vaudeville in the USA) and its auditorium is one of the most beautiful theatres anywhere. For many years it was the venue for the BBC varieties show "The Good Old Days" where members of the audience wore period costume.

My late mother, who came from Bramhope, one of the posher Leeds suburbs, would have been horrified by my visiting the Varieties because it was no place for a lady when she was a girl. As you can see from the photo, times have changed. I was given a conducted tour by the centre manager. I photographed her in Gumption's space at the Centre.

Another lady I met at the Centre, was Gaynor Beckett, an employment law and litigation consultant. Gaynor, who qualified as a solicitor and worked for trade unions and in local government, offers practical advice on employment law. Essentially keeping folk out of trouble and legal expenses down. As the legal services industry is undergoing changes comparable to those that revolutionized the financial services industry in the 1980s I am sure she iwill do very well indeed.

Why Gumption Centres? When I moved to the Huddersfield Media Centre at the end of 2004 I arranged an exhibition and conference on invention and innovation at the Media Centre and the University called "Brass from Gumption" on 18 Feb 2005. It was a triumph with speakers of the calibre of Trevor Baylis and Lawrence Smith Higgins of the IPO and visitors from all over England. David helped me arrange the event. After the conference he asked me whether he could use the name for his business which I was glad to let him do so. He and John helped me over the years by hosting conferences and seminars and other services and I have assisted them with advice and drafting in return.

A FabLab for Keighley?

2011-11-09T06:55:00.006Z

"FabLab" is an abbreviation for fabrication laboratory. It is described in Wikipedia as "a small-scale workshop offering (personal) digital fabrication." It is typically equipped with a range of computer controlled tools that cover several different length scales and various materials, with the aim of making "almost anything". There are FabLabs across the world from Southern Ghana to Northern Norway including one in Manchester that I mentioned in my IP North West blog yesterday ("FabLab Manchester: Introduction to Intellectual Property" IP North West 8 Nov 2011).

Jane Keats gave a presentation that focused on FabLabs entitled "Factories of the Future" to Leeds and Sheffield inventors clubs on 21 Sept and 3 Oct 2011 (see "Jane Keats on 'Factories of the Future'" in my Inventors Club blog of 7 Nov 2011 and "LIG 21st Sept 11 Fablabs - Factories of the Future? Jane Keats" in the Leeds inventors Group blog). Also, the Keighley News reported that a mobile FabLab would be set up in Keighley on 8 Sept 2011 to coincide with the British Science Festival (see "Chance to go and explore Universe", Keighley News 8 Sept 2011).

In her talk Jane mentioned the possibility of a permanent FabLab in Keighley there are at last signs that that may be happening. Much of the equipment for the Keighley site was purchased some months ago and is now being stored at FabLab Manchester. Now the post of CEO for the "Centre for Manufacturing Excellence" at an annual salary of £45,000. The job advertisement notes that:

"The CME will also operate a Fab Lab. A Fab Lab is a digital fabrication laboratory, originating from MIT in the States around ten years ago to “empower individuals rather than institutions to be able to make almost anything”.Fab Labs are a facility for rapid prototyping and assistance with product development. Labs also provide educational and training workshops for schools, colleges and open access to the community.

The CEO on appointment will initially establish a smooth and effectively operating Fab Lab, exploiting different markets to generate revenue to sustain the Fab Lab operations.The Fab Lab will attract commercial clients, sole inventors, schools, colleges and a diverse community."

I drew these developments to the attention of Councillor Mehboob Khan, leader of Kirklees metropolitan borough council and deputy chair of the Leeds City Region local enterprise partnership at the LEP Summit in September. Councillor David Ridgway, another Kirklees Councillor has also offered his support.

The job description for the Keighley FabLab stipulates that the successful candidate will have "an understanding of intellectual property rights". That is to be welcomed though he or she and the interview panel should be aware that additive manufacturing technologies present particularly complex. As a starter, however, they would do worse than begin with the presentations that patent agent Tom Hutchinson, specialist solicitor Michael Sandys and I gave to FabLab Manchester on 12 Oct 2011.

If anybody has any questions or comments, he or she can contact me through my contact form, Facebook, Linkedin, Xing or twitter or call me on 0113 320 3232.

Regional Growth Fund: who got what in Yorkshire

2011-10-31T11:32:00.005Z

In "Tarzanned" I wrote about the Regional Growth Fund Roadshow in York in my Inventors' Club blog on 1 June 2011. Today, the Department of Business Innovation and Skills has announced the successful bidders for the second tranche of the £1.4 billion fund.

The companies and local authorities in Yorkshire and Humber that have been offered a share of the £950 million are as follows:

SEW Eurodrive UK
Cummins Turbo Technologies
Surgical Innovations Ltd
BOC Ltd
East Riding of Yorkshire Council
University of Sheffield - AMRC
Sirius Minerals, Plc
Leeds City Region
North Lincolnshire Council
Wakefield Council
City of Bradford MDC
Sheffield Forgemasters International Limited
Stainless Plating Limited
T&N Plastics Limited
600 UK Ltd
RoadTankers Northern Ltd

Heights Ltd
Hindle
VTL (Europe) Ltd
i-plas Products Ltd
Halifax Rack and Screw Cutting Co Ltd
Treves UK LTD
Severn Unival Ltd

It is hoped that these grants will create 3,000 new jobs directly and 13,700 indirectly.

As I said in the penultimate paragraph of my previous article this money does not come without strings and will have to be repaid if it does not bring the promised employment. However, with the exception of the Department of Culture Media and Sport's Broadband Delivery UK Fund this is the only large scale grant allocation that can be expected from HM Government in this Parliament. That does not mean to say that there are not other sources of funding including some grants but they will be not be distributed in the way that they were by the last government.

For further information about this article or raising investment in general call me on 0800 862 0055 or contact me through this form.

LEP Summit: My Impressions of the Day as a Delegate

2011-09-10T17:49:00.013+01:00

Yesterday I attended the Local Enterprise Partnership Summit at the Leeds Armouries. As you can see from the programme it was a very long day but also an instructive one. There were said to be over 750 delegates. Throughout the day there was a constantly updated twitter stream which you can find at #lepsummit2011.

Although the focus was on Leeds City Region (an area that includes the five metropolitan boroughs of the county of West Yorkshire as well as Barnsley in South Yorkshire and Craven, Harrogate, Selby and York in North Yorkshire) the summit was important to local enterprise partnerships ("LEP") everywhere. That was no doubt why Mark Prisk MP, the Minister of State for Business & Enterprise, was invited to speak together with representatives of the Manchester, Sheffield and North East LEP, the OECD, the British Chambers of Commerce and the Centre for Cities.

As I have said many times in this and my Inventors Club and IP North West blogs, the LEP represent a sea change in regional development For as long as I can remember regional development strategy of both major parties has taken the form of handouts from central government for big infrastructure projects such as motorways and universities usually administered by quangos in the hope that they would stimulate enterprise. And it just hasn't worked. As I observed in my question in a breakout session on infrastructure on what can we do to encourage a "Silicon Roundabout" in Yorkshire along the lines of the one in Old Street, businesses will cluster where they see advantages in clustering and not where well intentioned planners want to put them.

The reason why the traditional strategy does not work was explained by Dr. Enrique Garcilazo of the OECD. It is ironic that it took an economist from Paris to explain the reasoning behind LEPs rather than the Minister and the massed ranks of local and national politicians. Dr. Garcilazo is author of the OECD publication "How Regions Grow: Trends and Analysis". Briefly his research shows that central government spending on infrastructure and human capital development (education and training) in isolation are not enough to stimulate enterprise . If you build a motorway to a depressed region as was done in Southern Italy you simply make it easier for people to get out. Similarly, if you improve the education system without creating employment or business opportunities they will just find it easier to get jobs in places like the South of England or Northern Italy. There has to be a systematic and holistic approach to local development best managed from the bottom up that utilizes the competitive advantages of each region.

That seems to be the thinking behind the Leeds City Region plan which was unveiled at the conference. It is perhaps best summarized in the following passage from a handout to delegates:

"The LEP will lead a cross-sector, balanced approach to economic growth, and will build on the unique combination of city region assets to unlock the potential of our economy, businesses and workforce."

The handout outlined 4 priorities for the LEP:

unlocking the growth potential of business and enterprise;
enabling a flexible, skilled workforce;
facilitating a low carbon economy; and
creating the environment for growth.

The LEP aims to achieve a minimum of 2.6% GVA (gross value added) growth every year to 2030 and a return to pre-depression levels of employment by 2016.

Of course, these are very fine aspirations but they can be achieved only if businesses actually find a market for their goods and services. Mike Spencer, Senior Policy Adviser to the British Chambers of Commerce, displayed bar charts that showed that consumer and government spending had more or less flatlined since the start of the current downturn. Mr. Spencer reasoned that if there was to be any growth it would have to come from exports. As the USA and EU were doing no better than us we have to sell more to Brazil, India and China. I mischievously asked the panel what exactly suppliers in our region had to sell to consumers in Bahia, Bangalore and Beijing. Neil Mclean the LEP Chair suggested biotech and IT. Mark Ridgway of the Rhodes Group mentioned all the things that his company did in India. The fact is that Yorkshire and Humber does not seem to do as well as other regions when it comes to developing new technologies with just 1,144 patent applications in 2010 trailing the South East with 2,810, London (2,584), East of England (1,984), South West (1,639) and the North West (,246) (source IPO Facts and Figures 2009 and 2010).

While all credit is due to Mr. McLean and his fellow board members for staging this event I left feeling that they had a mountain to climb. One of the first questions in the manufacturing breakout section was "What about old technology?" Other questions were on what can be done to make the NHS buy from local suppliers. I had to intervene to point out that we were in a single European market and indeed a single national market where everyone was entitled to a fair crack of the whip. I detected more than a whiff of protectionism in the air.

Another depressing theme was inter-regional rivalry and dependency on London. One gentleman from the floor asked when Leeds-Bradford airport would restore its link to Heathrow. There is already a major international airport at Ringway connected by a direct rail service and the M62 motorway to most parts of Yorkshire. There are some things such as airports that are best done on a Northern and not just City Region basis. I think our LEP Board realizes that which is why they invited representatives from the other regions.

Overall I hope this project works and in my own small way I shall do my best to help it along the way. Over drinks after the conference I met several of the young men and women who had been seconded by local authorities and businesses to work for the LEP secretariat and was very impressed by their quality and enthusiasm. I hope I am no sycothant but I am also genuinely impressed by the members whom I have met over the last 6 months such as Neil McLean and Mehboob Khan from Leeds and Philip Bartey and David Grey of Sheffield. They give their time to this project for nothing for which they deserve our gratitude. I just wish there were more representatives of the communities that they serve.

Sheffield Hallam University Enterprise Centre

2011-09-06T05:27:00.003+01:00

Sheffield has two great universities:

the University of Sheffield, and
Sheffield Hallam University.

Sheffield Hallam University's Enterprise Centre is literally just across the road from Central Library which hosts Sheffield Inventors Group. Hallam has an enormous pool of expertise ranging from Arts and Humanities to Transport and Logistics.

Yesterday the Inventors Group welcomed Heath Reed from the University's Art and Design Research Centre and its designfutures consultancy to talk about how Hallam can help inventors, start-ups and other small and medium enterprises. They seem to have done some work for Andrew Jones one of Huddersfield's institutions. To read more about Heat's talk, see my article "Sheffield Inventors Group: A Link with Hallam" in my Inventors' Club blog.

Pork pie packaging is just one example of Hallam's expertise. To find out more it is worth checking out the Innovation Futures page on its website. Some of their research and consultancy work may be funded.

News of LEPs in Yorkshire and Humber No. II

2011-09-04T10:03:00.000+01:00

I see to my horror that I have not updated this blog since 27 July 2011 though I did publish IP Yorkshire, the Yorkshire and Humber newsletter, on Yorkshire Day which falls on 1 August. A lot has happened since then.

Humber LEP

First a proposal by a consortium of local authorities and local businesses and business organizations for a local enterprise partnership for the Humber has been accepted. You can see the press release on Hull and Humber Chamber of Commerce website. According to its proposal the LEP will:

"Co-ordinate public and private sector activity that is targeted at growing our three key growth sectors (renewable energy, ports and logistics, and chemicals), with the aim of developing an international-scale super cluster around the Humber.
Lead on 16-19 and adult skills strategy, particularly in relation to the key sectors listed above, to ensure that as many of the jobs created as possible can go to local people, businesses can recruit the workforces they need to expand, the aspirations of young people are raised and graduate retention is improved.
Take responsibility for the “Humber brand”, co-ordinating and promoting our offer for international trade and as a location for investment.
Lead on international trade issues to help more companies export their goods and services.
Lead on co-ordinating and identifying strategic transport and infrastructure priorities that will support economic growth.
Co-ordinate activity that supports innovation and enterprise.
Bring together partners where appropriate to bid for public and private sector contracts and funding.
Submit a bid for an Enterprise Zone in the Humber and explore any other opportunities that arise from new Government policy."

According to Lorna Gibbons, Senior Economic Development Officer at Poole Borough Council who keeps the superb Economic Development blog, the contact for the Humber LEP is Mr. Richard Kendall Tel 01484 324 976 Email r.kendall@hull-humber-chamber.co.uk (see "Everything you need to know about each LEP ..... contact and priorities (where available)"). I have also found a website for the LEP at http://humberlep.org/. Their postal address is 34/38 Beverley Road, Hull, HU3 1YE and their twitter feed is @humberlep.

Enterprise Zones

The last of the bullet points on the Humber LEP's to do list was to submit a bid for an enterprise zone in the Humber and that seems to have been approved within a week of being submitted (see the press release of 17 Aug 2011 on the chamber website and the announcement on the LEP site). The site will cover 375 hectares on 3 sites: Green Port (Alexandra Dock) and Queen Elizabeth Dock in Hull and the Able Marine Energy Park in North Lincolnshire. The sector focus will be on offshore wind OEM and it is hoped to generate 4,850 jobs in the zone by 2015. There will be £7.9 million is business rates savings.

There will also be enterprise zones in Leeds (142 hectares in the Lower Aire Valley) where it is hoped to 4,000 new jobs in low carbon industries and modern manufacturing (see "Leeds Enterprise Zone: Full Details" in Real Business) and Sheffield in the "Modern Manufacturing and Technology Growth Area" where it is hoped to create 12,600 jobs (see "Sheffield Enterprise Zone: Full Details" in Real Business).

For updates see Lorna's post "Enterprise Zones Update" of 15 Aug 2011 and the Communities Department's LEP and enterprise zones map.

Leeds LEP Summit

Leeds LEP will hold a one day summit to shape the Leeds City Region economy at the Royal Armouries on 9 Sept 2011. I have registered the course and will blog about it next week. The programme looks very interesting.

Other Articles

21 Oct 2010 "LEP begin to take shape"

30 Oct 2010 "Government's Strategy on Growth published at Last"

12 Jan 2011 "News of Yorkshire LEPs"

1 Feb 2011 "Leeds LEP Board Members"

21 March 2011 "New LEP for York and North Yorkshire"

12 April 2011 "Sheffield LEP: NAMTEC Questions and Answers"

9 June 2011 "Local Enterprise Partnerships: A Great Resource"

Beer and Trade Marks: Samuel Smith v Lee

2011-07-27T11:12:00.013+01:00

"This is a case about Yorkshire pride, in more ways than one" said Mr. Justice Arnold in the first sentence of his judgment Samuel Smith Old Brewery (Tadcaster) v Lee (t/a Cropton Brewery) [2011] EWHC 1879 (Ch) (22 July 2011). He continued:

"The protagonists, Samuel Smith and Cropton Brewery, are two proud, small, independent Yorkshire breweries. There is no dispute about the quality of their respective beers. The casus belli is Samuel Smith's claim that Cropton Brewery has infringed Samuel Smith's registered trade mark for a stylised white rose device, and committed the tort of passing off, by use of labels incorporating two similar stylised white rose devices. For the uninitiated, a white rose is the traditional symbol of the county of Yorkshire, having been the emblem of the House of York during the Wars of the Roses. The dispute is one which ought to have been capable of settlement out of court a long time ago. Instead it has grown into a case which is out of all proportion to what is at stake in commercial terms. One explanation for this is Yorkshire pride; but I fear that the English legal system bears a measure of responsibility as well."

The causes of action were trade mark infringement and passing off. There was also a counterclaim for groundless threats under s.21 of the Trade Marks Act 1994.

The Trade Marks

The claimant company had registered two trade marks but the one around which this case revolved was 1,006,571 for beer in class 32. Its other mark was 2,005,780 in respect of "draught and bottled beer, all brewed in Yorkshire" in Class 32. Although that mark had been pleaded the judge made no further reference to it in his judgment.

The Alleged Infringements

Mr. Lee, the proprietor of Cropton Brewery had produced two labels to which Samuel Smith objected. One was for "Yorkshire Bitter" distributed by Marks and Spencer shown to the left.

The other was "Yorkshire Warrior" which was marketed partially to raise money for the benefit of troops serving in the Yorkshire Regiment shown below.

The Arguments

The claimant complained that the "Yorkshire Bitter" and "Yorkshire Warrior" labels infringed its trade marks under art 5 (1) (b) of the Trade Marks Directive (that is to say s. 10 (2) of the Act) and also art 5 (2) or s.10 (3) and that such use also amounted to passing off. The defendant argued that the white rose elements of the signs complained of are "indications concerning the … geographical origin" of the goods, namely Yorkshire. The threats were alleged to have been contained in letters to Marks & Spencer from the claimant's trade mark agents and solicitors on 10 Dec 2007 and 7 July 2010 respectively.

Decision

Mr. Justice Arnold held that:

(1) The "Yorkshire Bitter" label did not infringe Samuel Smith's registered trade mark;

(2) The "Yorkshire Warrior" one did, but

(3) Mr. Lee had a defence under art 6 (1) (b) of the Directive or s.11 (2) of the Act in respect of its use before the end of October 2009 but not afterwards;

(4) the use of the "Yorkshire Warrior" amounted to passing off though the use of the "Yorkshire Bitter" one did not; and

(5) the counterclaim failed because the defendant had not been a person aggrieved in respect of the first letter and the second letter did not amount to a threat.

How the Judge reached his conclusions

Throughout his judgment, his lordship referred not to the Act but to the EU legislation that is implemented by the Act. He probably did that as he directed himself in the principles derived from the well known decisions of the Court of Justice of the European Union on all the points that were before him. These are so well known that it would be otiose to repeat them but if anybody wants to look them up those on the art 5 (1) (b) or s.10 (2) point start at paragraph [76], those on art 5 (2) or s.10 (3) at paragraph [107] and those of the art 6 (1) (b) or s.11 (2) defence at paragraph [111].

As to why "Yorkshire Bitter" did not infringe, he said this at paragraph [105]:

"So far as Yorkshire Bitter is concerned, the identity of the goods and the distinctive character of the Trade Mark favour a likelihood of confusion, but the differences between the white rose device and the Trade Mark, the remainder of the sign and the identification of Cropton Brewery as the producer on the front of the label all militate against it. Samuel Smith has not adduced any evidence of weight to demonstrate a likelihood of confusion. Samuel Smith's dilatoriness in pursuing Marks & Spencer and Cropton Brewery over the matter suggests that it did not consider that there was a real likelihood of confusion. I infer that Yorkshire Bitter was only included in the case because Samuel Smith thought it would look odd to pursue Yorkshire Warrior without pursuing Yorkshire Bitter. Be that as it may, the evidence of experience strongly suggests that there is no likelihood of confusion. Overall, I am not persuaded that Samuel Smith has established that there is a likelihood of confusion."

As to why "Yorkshire Warrior" did, he said at [106]:

"Turning to Yorkshire Warrior, the identity of the goods and the distinctive character of the Trade Mark again favour a likelihood of confusion. In this case the white rose device is more similar to the Trade Mark, and it is more a dominant element of the sign, than in the case of Yorkshire Bitter. Importantly, Cropton Brewery is not identified as the producer on the front of the label. Furthermore, I think many consumers would miss the small print identifying it on the rear of the label. The evidence of the three independent witnesses considered above is some evidence of a likelihood of confusion, although not strong evidence. As I have explained, there is also the evidence of how Yorkshire Warrior has been sold in at least one retail outlet. Although there is no evidence of actual confusion in practice, for the reasons given above it is more difficult to place confidence in this as showing there is no likelihood of confusion than in the case of Yorkshire Bitter. In my view the majority of consumers will not be confused. Overall, however, I am persuaded that there is a likelihood that some consumers will be confused into believing either that Yorkshire Warrior is a Samuel Smith product or that it has some other connection with Samuel Smith."

The art 6 (1) (b) defence requires "use is in accordance with honest practices in industrial or commercial matters." The Yorkshire Warrior label is based on the cap badge of the Yorkshire Regiment which the defendant honesty and reasonably thought he had been licensed to use but on 22 Oct 2009 the colonel of the regiment asked him to stop.

As to passing off, the absence of evidence of confusion scuppered any cause of action in respect of the "Yorkshire Bitter" label but the reasoning set out in paragraph [106] above sufficed in respect of "Yorkshire Warrior".

The reason why the defendant was not a person aggrieved in respect of the first letter is that Marks & Spencer do not seem to have taken much notice of it. They continued to buy "Yorkshire Bitter" for over two years after receiving the letter and did not even pass on the letter to the defendant at first. The second letter went out of its way to assure Marks & Spencer that it did not wish to drag them into the proceedings.

Mediation

The judge's postscript was that in future mediation should be explored for disputes of this kind as soon as practicable. The IPO offers an excellent mediation service as does WIPO and indeed do NIPC. The IPO has listed a whole lot of other mediation providers of whom I am one. Anyone who wants to learn more about mediation and other types of ADR should call me on 0800 862 0055 or contact me through this form.

Mentoring in Yorkshire

2011-07-22T18:15:00.011+01:00

On 4 July 2011 the Business Finance Taskforce launched mentorsme.co.uk, an on-line gateway for mentoring services for small and medium enterprises ("SME"). I discussed it in "Oh me. Oh My, I hope the Little Mentor comes by."

One of the menu choices on the home page is "Find the Right Mentor". If you click on that link you find an interactive map of the United Kingdom. I clicked on the map of Yorkshire and the Humber and I found Success Doncaster and Business & Education South Yorkshire.

The website also listed the following national organizations that operate in our county:

The last two organizations are on-line only.

Business & Education South Yorkshire describes itself as "the leading strategic body established to develop education and business links activities in South Yorkshire." It provides companies with a one-stop-shop service for developing links with education.

Success Doncaster is an initiative of Doncaster MBC whose activities can best be discerned from its brochure.

Early days I suppose.

TEDx Bradford - This is Where We Live

2011-07-16T11:04:00.007+01:00

Whenever Imran Ali organizes something it is usually very good. He has brought us Open Coffee, Girl Geek Dinners and more good stuff. His latest initiative is TEDx Bradford.

TED stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design. It started from a conference in 1984 and has now become an international institution.

There are annual conferences in the USA and UK to which leaders in any field with something to say are invited to speak. Last Wednesday afternoon for example, we heard from cyber security expert Mikko Hypponen, lie detector Pamela Meyer, anti-torture campaigner, Helen Tse and some really lovely settings of Burn's verse by Eddi Reader. Each of those presentations is videotaped and can be viewed on the TED website. It is also possible to subscribe to the TED website free of charge and I have done just that.

TEDx is an extension of the TED formula. It enables local movers and shakers around the world such as Imran to organize their own events in the TED format. The event that Imran organized took place in the Cubby Broccoli cinema of the National Media Museum in Bradford. Its title was "This is Where We Live". The event stretched over the whole day. In the morning and afternoon we were connected by video link to TED Global Edinburgh.

From 17:00 we had our own programme with live speakers in the auditorium. They were all good but I particularly liked Mohammed Ali who has melded Western street art with Islamic calligraphy. His presentation went much further than that however. He showed photos from Australia, Germany and other countries of buildings that showed the influence of Islamic architecture long before those countries had significant Muslim communities. But what pulled me up with a jerk was something his father said. "Son, one day people like us may be forced out of the country". One of my other friends had also said something like this. I find it very sad that people who are my friends and neighbours have this threat at the back of their minds. I don't think it will ever happen but a slide of the English Defence League has made me start to worry.

But there were happier topics. Tom Wooley talked about the internet museum that he is planning for the Media museum. Emily Kecic spoke with passion about her pride in Bradford and at her disappointment at Bradfordians who claim to come from Leeds. The one talk I really wish I could have heard was historian and anthropologist Irna Qureshi's as I have also travelled a few kilometres along the Grand Trunk Road. Alas, I had tickets for Hull Truck's production of the "Lady in the Van" at the Alhambra, another great Bradford institution.

It probably takes an outsider to say this but Bradford is a great city. In my humble opinion it's as least as good as Leeds. Though my maternal family comes from Leeds I think I like Bradford even better.

Links

16 July 2011 Jane Wakefield TEDGlobal: Worshipping at the Church of TED BBC website

Angel Networks in Yorkshire

2011-07-12T00:31:00.003+01:00

An "angel" is a wealthy individual who invests in start-ups and early stage businesses. The term probably comes from the stage. It is an actors' reference to those who support new productions and, thus, thespian livelihoods, as in: "Oh, you are such an angel, darling." According to the Annual Report on the Business Angel Market in the United Kingdom: 2009/10 published in May 2011 there were about 4,544 members of angel networks in the UK in 2010. They fill a gap between friends, fools and family who tend to provide seed funding and private equity and venture capital investors.

Why People become Business Angels

Unlike theatrical angels who were attracted as much as anything by the smell of greasepaint and the thrill of attending a first night without any expectation of every seeing their money again, business angels expect a healthy return. According to Professor Robert Wiltbank who wrote "Siding with the Angels" , a research report published by NESTA (National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts) and the British Business Angel Association ("BBAA") in May 2009, British business angels are attracted by such tax schemes as the Enterprise Investment Scheme ("EIS") and the enterprise management incentives ("EMI"). Others relish the challenge of a second or subsequent career in a new business having made their pile in a previous one. Yet others who attribute their success to a mentor or investor in their own businesses say they wish to give others a start or put something back into society. Yet others have seen their fellows do well out of investing in a new company and decide that they could do likewise.

Angel Networks

In recent years some but by no means all angels have begun to flock into networks that prepare and present new investment opportunities to their members. Those networks do not usually make investments of their own or even advise angels on individual investments. The decision whether or not to invest is left to each individual investor. The networks screen and filter the proposals, offer some education and training in investment to their investing members and probably, most importantly, put investors in touch with each other so that they can compare experience. Some of those angel networks are national such as Advantage Business Angels and Beer and Partners. Others are local such as YABA (the Yorkshire Association of Business Angels) in Yorkshire and the Humber. Our chambers through the NIPC Inventors Club is compiling a list of business angels broken down by region and function.

Approaching Business Angels

There are several ways of approaching business angels but the way that I would recommend is through at least one of the networks. It is in your interest as well as the networks and their members to read everything that appears on the website before picking up the phone or filling out the contact form. Most carry information that is very useful to entrepreneurs. I would commend in particular YABA's business plan template. Another way is to seek an introduction through an intermediary. I have been known to do that though I usually refer clients to an accountant, solicitor or other professional first. yet another way is through a network that enjoys good links with angels such as Connect Yorkshire, Bmedia, the Leeds or Sheffield inventors clubs or Gumption Networking. Angel News circulates proposals to subscribers and I have even seen a postcard bulletin board at the Said Business School during the Oxford Venturefest.

What happens next

If a network is prepared to present your scheme to its members the next stage they may offer help in refining your business plan and preparing your pitch. If they think you need professional help they may introduce you to one of their associated law firms, patent agencies, product development consultants or accountancy practices. And then they will invite you to pitch. To give you some idea, one that I attended a few years ago took place at a university staff club. After a good buffet lunch we were offered four short presentations on propositions ranging from a new age magazine to opera in the workplace after which investors were invited to talk to the entrepreneurs individually in an exhibition area.

Further Information

If you want to know more about angel investment you could do worse that read my article "On the Side of the Angels" and "Where are you going to get funding?" and the introduction to funding and angels on our Inventors Club website. So far have only got details of two angel networks for Yorkshire and the Humber (namely YABA and South Yorkshire Business Angels) but several national networks such as Angels Den and Beer & Partners have local representatives in our county.

We are also getting to know angels both within and outside the angel networks so you can also call us on 0113 320 3232 or through our contact form. We advise, assist and represent both angels and investors on issues relating to legal and technology issues and we have a network of colleagues with world class expertise from the Bar and other professions who can assist with all company formation, investment, patent, design and trade mark registration, product design and development and taxation including EIS, EMI and the patent box concessions.

Design Right: Albert Packaging Ltd. and Others v Nampak Cartons & Healthcare Ltd.

2011-07-02T07:34:00.003+01:00

I've mentioned Judge Birss QC's judgment in Albert Packaging Ltd and Others v Nampak Cartons & Healthcare Ltd [2011] EWPCC 15 (2 June 2011) in IP Yorkshire because the defendant company is based in Leeds and was represented by a local law firm. This is an important case because it illustrates the limits of design right as a means of protecting investment in technology.

Why this case is important

In the last sentence of his judgement the learned judge held that the claimants had unregistered design right in the shape of their product in their assembled form and that it was "more likely than not" that that product was at least one of the sources of ideas for the defendant's products yet he found for the defendant. How could that be since s.226 (1) (a) of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 confers the exclusive right to make articles to a design on the owner of the design right? The judge's explanation was as follows:

"Design right is a right to restrain reproduction of the design by making articles to the design. That means copying the design so as to produce articles exactly or substantially to that design. When it comes to comparing the article alleged to infringe with the claimants' design in a case like this one, in which it can be seen that the article was in fact derived from multiple identifiable sources, it must be necessary to identify how much of the design of the article in question can be said to derive from the claimants' design."

He concluded that what the defendant's product owed to the claimant were the dimensions of the article which was not a substantial part of that design. To have found infringement given that all that had been derived were dimensions would have given design right to something that was no more than a method or principle of construction.

Method or Principle of Construction

I have italicized the words method or principle of construction because s.213 (3) (a) of the Act excludes those attributes from design right protection. There had been a corresponding provision in s.1 (1) (a) of the Registered Designs Act 1949 before the Registered Designs Regulations 2001 but there were not many cases on the point as it was rarely argued. The case most frequently cited was Moody v Tree (1892) 9 RPC 333 where Mr. Justice Vaughan Williams held that the pattern of a basket consisting of the osiers being worked in singly and the butt ends being outside could not be registered as a design. This case will be remembered for Judge Birss QC's explanation of the above italicized words in the context of unregistered design right.

Idea/Expression Dichotomy in Design Right

At paragraph [18] of his judgment, His Honour referred to the claimant's submission that

"although designs that serve purely functional purposes are not denied protection, it is important when identifying the aspect that is relied upon to have in mind that design right does not protect ideas per se (in the way a patent might) even though these ideas might have been important in arriving at the design in question."

He accepted that submission adding

"Design right only protects aspects of the actual physical manifestation of an idea."

Relying on Mr. Justice Mann's dicta in Rolawn Ltd and Another v Turfmech Machinery Ltd [2008] EWHC 989 (Pat) (7 May 2008) that "what is protected from copying in design right cases is the design, meaning the physical manifestation" and "not some underlying abstraction" and Lord Justice Neuberger's in Landor & Hawa International Ltd v Azure Designs Ltd [2006] EWCA Civ 1285 (28 July 2006) the judge propounded the following test:

"If it is possible to get several different appearances, which all embody the general features which he claims, then those features are too general and amount to a method or principle [of construction]. In other words, any conception which is so general as to allow several different appearances as being made within it, is too broad and will be invalid."

Comparative lawyers will immediately see the similarities between this and the somewhat cumbersome abstraction/expression filtration test in US copyright law best exemplified by Computer Associates International Inc. v Altai Inc. 982 F2d 693 (1992).

Is Design Right worth Having?

At paragraph [20] Judge Birss said

"This exclusion, and the 'interface exclusion', in s213 play an important part in the scheme of the 1988 Act by ensuring that design right provides a suitable amount of protection without unfairly restricting fair competition."

He is of course right but was that the intention of Parliament? In the white paper Intellectual Property and Innovation (Cm 9712) the government of the day considered whether a copyright based approach or utility models would best protect small businesses' investment in technology and design and opted for the former. Significantly, its example was followed by none of the other common law countries that had previously protected industrial designs by artistic copyright. Australia has opted for "innovation patents" and the Republic of Ireland for short term patents. With these and the other exclusions of s.213 (3), the availability of licences of right to anyone in the world including infringers under s.237, the qualification requirements that exclude designers in most industrial countries from protection under the Act not to mention the possibility of a threats action which did not exist under the 1956 Act, there does not seem to be a lot of point to design right. Hargreaves called for a fresh look at design right law (see "Does Hargreaves Say Anything New" IP/IT Update blog 24 June 2010) and on this if on nothing else his review is dead right.

Sheffield Inventors Group: Kin Kam and the iiCAP

2011-06-28T21:20:00.004+01:00

Dr. Kin F Kam has quite remarkable scientific credentials. Excluding his undergraduate study, he has spent 12 years in advanced physics including 5 years of nuclear fusion research at Culham. He now has his own company known as Inclusive Innovations Ltd. based at the University of York which promotes his inventions.

Two of Kin's latest inventions are the iiCAP, a special baseball cap that holds glasses in place, and the iiCLIP. a device that connects the wearer's glasses to any type of headgear. Kin came to Sheffield Inventors Club on 6 June 2011 to discuss those inventions.

Kin took his audience through every stage of his journey: his tussles with the examiners at the Intellectual Property Office and the State Intellectual Property Office in China, his excursions on Dragon Den and his attempts to market his product. In the course of his talk, Kin gave us some tips that worked for him on patenting and marketing, We wish him all the best with his inventions.

The speaker at the next meeting of the Inventors Club on 4 July 2011 will be Richard Campos, one of the group's founder members. The theme of Richard's talk will be "Developing Products for a Commercial Market". So it should be good. The meeting takes place at 18:00 on 4 July 2011 at Sheffield Central Library, Surrey Street, S1 1YZ. Further information can be obtained from Lyne Hinchcliff on 0114 273 4736, email information.library@sheffield.gov.uk.

Kin's New Website

Since his talk Kin has let me know that he has launched a new website at http://www.iiclip.co.uk/ where you can learn everything you could possibly want to know about his iiCLIP.

Cascading Cakes and Style Sheets: Digital Consortium's Summer Party

2011-06-19T07:48:00.010+01:00

It is always satisfying to see a local business do well - particularly one that is run by friends. Online marketing and web development company, Digital Consortium, of Sowerby Bridge near Halifax, has done very well as you can see from its portfolio and awards. I have known its founder, Liz Robinson, through Bmedia and other connections for years and have collaborated with her on several projects.

Last Friday afternoon the company threw a party. They called it an "English Tea Party" and invited guests to enter a cake competition. This photo shows that there was no shortage of entrants. As one of the few guests who didn't quite get round to baking a cake - though I like to think it may have been because of my skills as an arbitrator - I was asked to judge the cake competition together with Liz and a young gentleman called Scott who is about to gain some work experience with DC.

We judged the cakes for both taste and appearance on a scale 1 to 10. One being "utter rot" and I am afraid I can't remember the superlative for 10 but it seemed to me to be nigh on unobtainable. In fact, I gave several entries top marks and I don't think anyone got less than 6 from any of the judges. The standard was very, very, very high indeed.

The overall winner was Sarah who baked some delicious cup cakes with the DC branding. But it was a very close win. Another of my favourites was a "Google cake" baked by a father and

daughter team. It was iced to resemble the Google landing page. There were other two lovely cup cakes, two lemon drizzle cakes, yummy chocolate cakes and many others.

But Sarah was a worthy winner and the look on her face was a picture. If only I had the presence of mind to record her facial expressions and squeals of delight.

The photo doesn't really do justice to Sarah's dress which was lovely. A full skirt with lots of frothy petticoats. As delicious as a morning cappuccino on the shores of Lake Maggiore. And Sarah wasn't the only lady to look terrific. Rosy also wore a lovely dress as did Liz herself and all her colleagues.

The party was a great opportunity for me to meet not only DC's staff and customers but also the animators, developers and other contractors who have contributed to the company's success. There is a small but growing cluster of creative businesses in Sowerby Bridge and it will be interesting to follow their progress. We wish Digital Consortium and its community the best of luck.

PS. Liz Robinson writes:

"I just needed to let you know that there were two trophies with equal weighting (best looking, best tasting) and the best looking one was won by Karen Rossi - the wife of the chap who owns Greenhouse Telecom who provides us with phones and broadband (local company from Hebden Bridge) - I am waiting for the official photographs, but there's one Rosie took here http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150290054216449&set=a.10150289213141449.370974.67382961448&type=1

I will send over links to the proper photographs when I get sight of them.

Thank you again for coming, and for your kind words in your blog piece. Sarah will be overjoyed with your appreciation of her dress - she's been waxing lyrical about it for a while."

That's true, Liz. Thanks for the reminder and the photo. I had a long chat with Karen. Also an interesting discussion with her husband about elasticity of demand for superfast broadband. That will be the topic for another post. Congratulations Karen. If Sarah's dress was as delicious as Cappuccino your cake was as pleasing to the eye as Paladian architecture. And it was good to taste too.

PPS. I've just seen the photo. Karen is the lady receiving the cup from me. Liz is the lady with her palms outstretched just between us. See what I mean about her lovely dress. And you should have seen her shoes.

Life After Business Link: Innovatenow Ltd. and Baker & Co.

2011-05-15T23:41:00.004+01:00

Under the previous administration Business Link was the principal channel through which businesses were able to access government support. In their white paper "Local Growth - Realizing Every Place's Potential" the Coalition were quite scathing about Business Link calling its services "generalist" and "poorly targeted" though they had to admit somewhat grudgingly that some of its services were good.

Not everybody would agree that that criticism was fair. There were some good people in Business Link Yorkshire. Three of the best, Jane Hurn, Michael Kilroy and John McSweeney, have set up their own consultancy in the Huddersfield Media Centre called Innovate Now. According to their website the services they offer include

coaching and mentoring
in-depth business diagnostics and transformation
strategic planning, and
project management and implementation.

They can be reached on 01484 487983 or through their contact form. We wish them luck.

Another of my old Business Link contacts, Steve Baker, who left Business Link a while ago, is now providing a range of accountancy services to SME in Yorkshire in the name or style of Baker & Co. He is practising from Rawdon and can be reached on 0113 322 6136. He also has our best wishes.

Holmfirth Folk Festival

2011-05-10T02:02:00.007+01:00

In the first weekend of May my home town hosts a folk festival. Music and dance are everywhere. Every bar or cafe has at least one singer. Every few square metres of open space a troupe of morris or rapper dancers. Here's a photo that I took of some English maidens dancing lustily to beguiling Latin rhythms.

We all have our favourite artistes, of course, and mine are a band from Lancashire called Ottersgear. These musicians produce a sound like none other and have a captivating stage presence. To see what I mean just watch and listen to some of the clips on their YouTube channel, particularly "Faery Glen" which was shot at our Picturedrome cinema on the last day of last year's festival, and "Sunflowers in my Head".

Much of the band's appeal lies in the voice of its lead singer, Mikey Kenney which is both powerful and poignant. In the intimate setting of a cafe bar where they performed "Sunflowers" on Sunday afternoon this hard bitten patent counsel found herself reaching for her tissues more than once as she forced back welling emotions. But perhaps the haunting quality of their music comes from their gifted accordionist, Charley Weatherill, though it would be unfair to single her, the mandolin player, the bodhran or even Kenney himself for special praise.

Pressure of work meant that I had only a limited amount of time this year. I did however catch Ottersgear on Friday evening at the Picturedrome where they performed with Steph Stephenson, Gary Stewart and Ellen & the Escapades and again on Sunday afternoon when I visited several venues. Here is a photo of one of my other favourites playing "Uncle Joe's Mint Balls".

"What has all this to do with intellectual property?" You ask. Well performances are intellectual assets which are protected by rights in performances under Part II of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988. Also literary and musical copyrights subsist in the words and music of the songs. The names of bands can usually be registered as trade marks under the Trade Marks Act 1994. But really this is an excuse to blog about a delightful weekend in our lovely Pennine town. I'm sure my clients would agree that all work and no play would make Jane a very dull girl. Which I'm not really.

Right Funds 4U Hull 13 April 2011

2011-04-29T15:45:00.004+01:00

Having a bright idea is one thing. Taking it to market is quite another. In most cases a road to market requires money and unless you are rich you have to seek it from someone else.

For many would-be tycoons, this is an insuperable obstacle largely because they do not understand basic concepts such as the difference between lending and investment or long term assets and working capital.

This is why the Connect Yorkshire seminar "Right Funds 4U" which took place at the Hull Office of Rollits LLP on 13 April 2011 was so useful. Four speakers:

Paul Forth of NatWest Bank
Barrie Hensby from Finance Yorkshire
Steve McEwen from Beer & Partners, and
Andy Jewitt from Sadofskys

spoke about bank lending, venture capital, angel investment and grant funding respectively. Also present were Susanne Gilbert from YABA and Alan Clegg from Business Link Yorkshire.

Paul Forth started by asserting that banks are still in the business of lending, In his presentation he introduced the audience to the difference between debt and equity. He then outlined the sources of finance such as friends and family, business angels, private equity, the stock market and commercial banks. He talked about leasing and asset finance, factoring and invoice discounting and the enterprise guarantee scheme. He then discussed what financiers are looking for namely management and staff, products and services, markets and marketing and vision and strategy. He also flagged up what financiers are particularly wary of such as forecasts based on published as opposed to primary research and wildly optimistic sales figures. Finally, he told us what makes his bank stand out from the crowd.

For my money, the most interesting speaker was Barrie Hensby, one of the investment

direcctors of Finance Yorkshire. Finance Yorkshire offers a variety of financial products: seed corn, loans and equity. Barrie outlined those services and Finance Yorkshire's portfolio. He then introduced the audience to the concept of venture capital and how to get it. He explained what a suitable

investment would look like and gave us a couple of case studies. You can call Barrie on 01226 323737 or email him on barrieh@finance-yorkshire.com.

Barrie was followed by Steve McEwan of Beer & Partners and he was very entertaining. He made us hold hands for no particular reason and then asked us to raise our hands if we wanted to make loadsamoney. But there was a lot of substance in his talk. He explained what was me ant by angel finance, who business angels are, what they want, where to find them and how to attract them. Finally, Steve introduced Andrew Wilson, the network's regional development for Yorkshire.

The last speaker was Andy Jewitt and he had the most difficult slot partly because it was about grant funding which is in short supply but also because it stood in the way of the refreshments. Strangely enough, Andy omitted to mention J4B which is a great database of grant funding.

Connect Yorkshire, which is a not-for-profit company that helps businesses in Yorkshire and the Humber get the funding that they need, has advertised another Right Funds 4U event in Knaresborough on 21 June 2011. Also worth exploring is The Investment Readiness Bootcamp in Sheffield on 19 and 26 May 2011. According to my mate, Steve Knowles, who teaches the course, its real value lies in the the tips on business plan writing and coaching in pitching to investors.

Finally, those who didn't attend the session can find an introduction to funding, an overview and info on grants, loans, community development finance institutions, angel funding and private equity funding on my Inventors Club website. Anyone who wants to discuss any of these topics further should call me on 0800 862 0055 or through our contact form.

Sheffield LEP: NAMTEC Questions and Answers

2011-04-12T22:03:00.003+01:00

Earlier today I attended a Question and Answer Session on the Sheffield Local Enterprise Partnership at the Rotherham Holiday Inn organized by NAMTEC (the National Metal Technologies Centre). The speakers were LEP Board Members, David Grey, managing director of OSL Group Ltd. and Philip Bartey, Group Chief Executive of the Adsetts Partnership.

I counted 40 names on the delegate list which included representatives from industry, the universities, the law and other professions and local government. Judging by the number of name tags, when I arrived there were very few no shows. The meeting was quite unstructured. Save for a glossy about NAMTEC there were no delegate materials.

As soon as I had settled in I asked the speakers what exactly was the legal status of the Sheffield local enterprise partnership. Unlike the regional development agencies they were not established by statute. Their membership seemed quite fluid in that one local authority, Barnsley, managed to belong to both Leeds and Sheffield City Region LEPs. They apparently needed the approbation of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Department for the Communities, but why? Why did the LEPs have to be in adjacent authorities. Surely there was more synergy in function and economic interest than geography. The answer that I got was that there really was no formal legal structure. There was no provision for LEPs in the Localism Bill. The board members were unpaid and exceedingly worthy but also unelected. In that regard, I could not help comparing them to the Senate of the Venetian Republic.

The next question concerned the Regional Growth Fund. That elicited the answer that the criteria for awards under the scheme were jobs. Jobs now to soak up public sector redundancies. Not jobs in the future, to quote Lord Heseltine. That seems to be confirmed by the latest press release on the first round of awards.

Someone else asked about enterprise zones. The speakers said that the LEP had been tasked with drawing up criteria for the enterprise zones. David Grey invited our suggestions. A lady behind me suggested start-ups. Grey replied that start-up businesses are the ones most likely to fail. I suggested that Meadowhall which has been built on an old steel mill a few miles away were a good example of what could be done. The speakers' responded that Meadowhall had devastated Sheffield and Rotherham City Centres. I replied that they were missing the point. The idea was to match jobs to skill sets and Meadowhall did that spectacularly well. There was more to the site than retailing. There was demolition, earthworks, construction, distribution, entertainment, culture and leisure. Redundant steel workers were much more likely to find a job in a project like that than a biotech start-up.

Finally there was some discussion on British competitiveness. The speakers said that we Brits excelled in talking ourselves down and we should celebrate our achievements occasionally. I did not contribute to that debate but I couldn't help thinking that complacency was a greater danger than self denigration.

There were a few minutes for networking after the talk when I met patent librarian Lynne Hinchcliff and Joyce Gray from Sheffield City Libraries, Andy Curtis from Global Innovation Partners, Jayne Mezulis from Export & Import Consultancy Services and, of course, the speakers themselves.

Patent Ownership Co-Ownership and Corporate Ownership

2011-04-06T23:42:00.005+01:00

This was the title of Roger Lowe's talk to Sheffield Inventors Group on Monday. Roger is proprietor of ip4all, an intellectual property consultancy in Huddersfield.

He began his talk by quoting Mark Getty:

"Intellectual property is the oil of the 21 century. Look at the richest men a hundred years ago; they all made their money extracting natural resources or moving them around. All today’s richest men have made their money out of intellectual property."

Roger then discussed patents as property rights, something that can be bought, sold or charged. He considered ownership and warned that:

"The mere suggestion of co-ownership of patents makes the blood of IP practitioners run cold."
Co-ownership must be adopted only as a last resort.

Too true. He then explained why. Having told us why co-ownership is a bad thing he considered some of the alternatives such as licensing and corporate ownership. The best time to consider these issues is before the application for a patent but not every patent agent tells you that.

There will be no Inventors' Group meeting for May because the first Monday falls on the Mayday Bank Holiday but there will be an exhibition at Central Library to celebrate World IP Day on 26 April 2011. If you want to join the club or set up an inventors' club in your own area call us on 0800 862 0055 or complete our contact form.

Forthcoming Events: Right Funds 4 U, Hull 13 April 2011

2011-04-04T08:39:00.006+01:00

My friend John Coulter of Business Link sent me this flyer for a free seminar on attracting investment for a new business. Speakers include a banker, business angel, venture capitalist and grant advisor. The event takes place at Rollitts in Hull on 13 April 2011 at 17:30 and you can book through Connect Yorkshire's website.

Daffodils at Farndale

2011-04-04T01:10:00.006+01:00

This post has nothing to do with intellectual property but everything to do with our beautiful county of Yorkshire.

Every year the banks of the Rover Dove in Farndale are carpeted with a magnificent display of daffodils. Here is a snap that I took with my BleckBerry yesterday afternoon. If you want to learn more about Farndale and its daffodils visit Farndale Online.

Enjoy.

Forthcoming Evens: Sheffield Inventors Group and Open Coffee

2011-04-03T09:00:00.004+01:00

Two interesting events coming up this week.

Tomorrow at 18:00 Dr Roger Lowe, an independent IP consultant who practises as IP 4 All, will be guest speaker at Sheffield Inventors Group. Roger writes:

"one issue which is often overlooked by many patent attorney’s is the provision of advice with regard to the identification of the most appropriate person/body in whose name the patent application should be filed. Many inventors simply file applications in their own name or names, but should they be thinking about establishing a company and filing the patent in the name of the company. I was planning to address the issues of ownership, co-ownership and corporate ownership and the pros and cons of the various options."

The meeting will take place at Sheffield Central Library, Surrey Street, Sheffield, S1 1XZ.

The next day at 10:00 Open Coffee Leeds will hold its monthly meeting at

NTI,

Old Broadcasting House,

148 Woodhouse Lane,

Leeds

LS2 9EN.

This is an informal gathering of creatives, entrepreneurs, geeks, investors and others which takes place on the second Tuesday of every month. Tickets are free and can be ordered for any Open Coffee gathering through Eventbrite.

The Huddersfield Choral Society Rose

2011-04-02T06:34:00.012+01:00

On page 31 of the programme for yesterday's concert by the the Huddersfield Choral Society in Huddersfield town hall there is a picture of a beautiful rose. I've scoured the internet for an image of it but the best I can do is direct you to page 2 of the January 2011 issue of the Choral's newsletter which you can find on issuu.

The advertisement describes the rose as "floribunda in a deep mauve with a silver underside." It has been bred specially for the Society by a Mr. R Rawlins of Fixby to celebrate its 175th anniversary. The first 60 shrubs should be delivered from October of this year and will retail at £10 and there will be a second growing next year. After 2013 the rose will be available commercially from R V Roger Ltd. of Pickering. If you want one of those roses you should contact Jenny Lockwood on 01484 666827.

New plant varieties can be protected in the United Kingdom by registering the species with the Plant Variety and Seeds Office under the Plant Varieties Act 1997. Registration with the Office confers an intellectual property right known as "plant breeder's right". Registration confers the right on the holder to prevent:

production or reproduction (multiplication),
conditioning for the purpose of propagation,
offering for sale, selling or other marketing, exporting, importing, stocking for any of the above purposes, or
any other act prescribed for the purposes of that provision without his authority.

Alternatively, plant breeders in the UK can seek protection in all member states of the European Union by registering with the Community Plant Variety Office under Regulation 2100/04. The British government is party to the International Convention for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants which has established UPOV (The Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants) in Geneva. If you want more information on plant breeders rights you can read my article on Plant Varieties on my IP/IT Update website. If you have a specific issue relating to plant varieties you can contact me on 0800 862 0055 or by filling in my contact form.

Returning to the concert itself, I can only say that it was the best performance of the Choral that I have ever attended. Three works were performed yesterday:

Being a balletomane I was already familiar with such works as Firebird and the Rite of Spring. The Symphony of Psalms was exquisite, especially the setting of Psalm 150. On being told at the pre-concert talk that Harvey's Messages consisted entirely of the names of angels, I was somewhat apprehensive about that work. All I can say was that it worked and that it was eminently suitable for what I call the Huddersfield sound. If you want to know what I mean

compare the Choral's Dies Irae in Verdi's Requiem with that of any other choir. It was. incidentally, the first time I had ever heard a cimbalom, a Hungarian instrument that can best be described as a sort of manual piano. However, for me the best part of the programme was the Bruckner mass at the end.

The concert was to have been conducted by Martyn Brabbins but owing to Brabbins's indisposition the Chorus Master Joseph Cullen took his place. From my perspective Cullen did a very good job indeed.

Huddersfield Choral Society is one of our great institutions. If you want to follow the Society they are on Facebook, Linkedin and twitter. Now in their 175th season they are certainly worth following.

Creative Networks: Lizzie Mary Cullen - Off the Wall!

2011-04-01T01:21:00.004+01:00

Creative Networks is a networking group for professionals in the creative industries which meets at Leeds College of Art on the last Thursday of every month. In the three years that I have been coming to its meetings I have heard talks by Jimmy Choo, David Parrish and many others in the arts and creative industries establishment.

This month it was the turn of Lizzie Mary Cullen. Cullen is an illustrator and designer who has done a great deal in a very short time. Still only 25 she has worked for such household names as Zizzi restaurants, MTV and Harvey Nichols.

Totally charming and unassuming she won her audience over from the start by telling a really terrible joke but in a way that was really funny. She followed up with a brief auto-biography and then three short videos of some of her recent work. She finished her short presentation with another joke - this one even worse than the first and yet even funnier.

The films that she showed us are on her website at http://www.lizziemarycullen.com. There is also a gallery of her work on that site which I really like. You can also follow her on twitter.

Creative Networks was until recently funded by Business Link Yorkshire. The loss of the regional Business Link cannot have been easy for Creative Networks and it is good to see that the network is still here. But it needs support and, if possible, money. Before the talk Bridget March asked for ideas for raising money that do not imperil its independence. If you can help or just want information about the network and its events you can email Bridget on bridgetm@leeds-art.ac.uk.

New Local Enterprise Partnership for York and North Yorkshire

2011-03-21T10:00:00.003Z

I have already written articles for this blog and elsewhere about local enterprise partnerships (see, in particular, "News of Yorkshire LEPs" 12 Jan 2011 and "Leeds LEP Board Members"). By a letter dated 10 Feb 2011 signed by Mark Prisk MP and Greg Clark the Business and Communities Departments approved proposals for a new local enterprise partnership for York and North Yorkshire.

Yorkshire now has three local enterprise partnerships:

There is a measure of overlap between those partnerships. Both Leeds and Sheffield City Regions include Barnsley in their orbits and York is a member of the Leeds City Region and the York and North Yorkshire LEPs. Representatives of all three LEPs attended the so-called "Big Debate on Local Enterprise Partnerships" at Venturefest on the 16 Feb 2011 at which I was present.

The new York and North Yorkshire LEP has announced a number of activities including:

investing in rural broadband
promoting enterprise and raising expectations
supporting food and agriculture
supporting tourism and hospitality
promoting the care sector
investing in York as the economic driver for the region
reducing barriers to high growth business
delivering rural programmes, and
supporting coastal regeneration.

All very worthy though in parts somewhat vague. We shall be following all three Yorkshire LEPs and will report on anything that is likely to be of interest to those investing in new brands, design, technology and the creative industries in Yorkshire and the Humber. Click here or call us on 0113 320 3232 if you want to be kept up to date about business advice, events, funding, professional advisors or news from our region.

Leeds LEP Board Members

2011-02-01T23:46:00.002Z

Earlier today Leeds City Region Local Enterprise Partnership announced its new board members. They are as follows:

Private Sector

Neil McLean, DLA Piper (Chair)

John Parkin, Chief Executive, Leeds Bradford International Airport

Stephen Kennedy, Chief Operating Officer of CPP Group, York

Mark Ridgeway, Managing Director of Group Rhodes, Wakefield

Stephanie Burras, Chief Executive, Leeds Ahead

Gary Jones, Chairman, MSA Engineering Systems Ltd & Heights Group, Halifax

Paul Hamer, Chief Executive Officer, WYG Group, Leeds

Brian Cantor, Vice Chancellor, University of York

Gary Lumby, Director of Small Business Banking, Yorkshire and Clydesdale Banks

Local Authorities

Leeds, Cllr Keith Wakefield

Bradford, Cllr Ian Greenwood

Kirklees, Cllr Mehboob Khan

Wakefield, Cllr Peter Box

Calderdale, Cllr Janet Battye

York, Cllr Andrew Waller

North Yorkshire, Cllr John Weighell

Harrogate, Cllr Mike Gardner

Everyone in these chambers sincerely and profusely congratulates those members and wishes them the best of British luck.

Having wished the team well we can't help reflecting that local enterprise partnerships are supposed to "drive sustainable economic growth and create the conditions for private sector job growth in their communities". The board has only one woman from the business side and one from the local authorities. Even though some of the best young entrepreneurs that this county has produced are of South Asian heritage the only representative of those communities is Mehboob Khan who is, of course, leader of Kirklees metropolitan borough council. There is nobody from the creative, electronics, food and drink, hospitality, media or software industries even though Yorkshire is strong in all those industries.

So who would we have? Young entrepreneurs like Ajaz Amjad who has already served on the board of Yorkshire Forward. Ideas men like Imran Ali. Catalysts like Linda Broughton who have united business and education at the NTI. Instead of a banker how about Steve Waud who heads the CDFA, the financial institutions that actually assist small businesses rather than trip them up. Possibly someone from an incubator like Brent Woods of the Huddersfield Media Centre. We could go on.

Inventors' Resources in Yorkshire

2011-01-24T08:51:00.002Z

I have just published an article on Inventors' Resources in Yorkshire and the Humber on my Inventors Club blog.

It sets out information on Yorkshire Forward, the Leeds and Sheffield LEPs, business advisers, business angels, clinics, community development finance institutions, inventors clubs, libraries and so on in the region and much, much more.

There is also an Inventors Club group on LinkedIn which you can join. Also, why not visit the Inventors Club website.

News of Yorkshire LEPs

2011-01-12T10:00:00.005Z

The previous government established regional development agencies ("RDA") to stimulate economic growth in the regions of England. The regional development agency for Yorkshire and the Humber is Yorkshire Forward. Although the RDA undoubtedly did some good work they did not actually achieve their objective of producing balanced balanced growth throughout the country. As I observed in "Government's Strategy on Growth published at last" (NIPC Inventors Club 30 Oct 2010):

"As most of us are used to a more corporatist model, the government's thinking is hard to follow. Those who want to understand the thinking behind it should read the Department for Business Innovation and Skills economic paper "Understanding Local Growth" also published this month. Without an economics background, this paper is hard going, but the important bit is the table on page 10. That shows that productivity per person has actually fallen during the years in which the RDAs existed in every region except London and the South-East and that growth has been appreciably slower outside those regions. That paper taken as a whole has convinced me of the need to try something else."

That "something else" are to be Local Enterprise Partnerships ("LEP"), boards of local business leaders and authorities who will work together to promote sustainable growth and jobs in their local areas. I discussed LEPs in some detail in my article "Local Enterprise Partnerships Begin to Take Shape" on 21 Oct 2010.

The Government has accepted two proposals for LEPs in Yorkshire and the Humber:

Leeds LEP has just appointed its chairperson, Mr. Neil McLean, a partner of the law firm DLA Piper which actually started in Leeds as Dibb Lupton not too long ago. Mr. McLean's appointment has been welcomed by local businesses and councils.

Sheffield has actually appointed its full board which held its first meeting on 20 Dec 2010. It is now working on its business plan. The government has announced a £4 million fund to to help with analytic services (see "New Fund for LEPs Announced" J4B Grants 7 Jan 2011).

We shall keep you posted on developments.

Leeds Inventors Club

2010-11-27T14:22:00.002Z

The meeting of Leeds Inventors Group fixed for next Wednesday, 30 Nov 2010 at 18:00 has been cancelled owing to unforeseen circumstances.

Wishing all inventors in Leeds a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Mousetrap Man to Speak at Leeds Inventors Club

2010-11-16T15:09:00.003Z

Graham Barker, c0-author of a Better Mousetrap and author of Patenting the Ugly Truth, will be guest speaker at Leeds Inventors Club on 30 Nov 2010 in Central Library between 18:00 and 19:45.

Please don't traipse over to the library tomorrow as everybody will be in the pub, watching telly or otherwise having fun.

A Patent Application from Summer Wine Country

2010-11-11T13:08:00.011Z

Not a lot of people know this but we have a patent agent in the our beautiful valley. And a very good one he is too. His name is David Lister and he practises in Honley. The reason I mention Mr. Lister is that I have just read one of his cases.

Re Owen's patent application BL 0/370/10 was a rubbish case. Literally. The invention lay in the field of scrapping goods and products that had come to the end of their useful life. It concerned a process which took the product in question, broke it up into pieces, separated out certain pieces or material for re-use, and then made a new composite material out of the remaining matter. The principal claim was

"A process for scrapping vehicles or white goods formed from two or more types of material comprising passing the vehicles or white goods in an assembled condition through a shredding machine which shreds, chops or fragments the products which are being scrapped into pieces, removing and recovering for re-use part of the pieces and mixing or coating the remaining pieces with an encapsulating material having adhesive properties to form a re-useable composite material wherein no pieces of the vehicles or white goods being scrapped remain to be disposed of by other means such as incineration or in land-fill sites."

The examiner objected to the application on the grounds that there was no inventive step. It was common ground that the Windsurfing/Pozzoli tests applied.

(1) Identify the notional “person skilled in the art”

(2) Identify the relevant common general knowledge of that person

(3) Identify the inventive concept of the claim in question or if that cannot readily be done, construe it

(4) Identify what, if any, differences exist between the matter cited as forming part of the “state of the art” and the inventive concept of the claim or the claim as construed

(5) Viewed without any knowledge of the alleged invention as claimed, do those differences constitute steps which would have been obvious to the person skilled in the art or do they require any degree of invention?

It was also common ground that the person skilled in the art was "a team of individuals involved in the recycling and disposal of waste mechanical equipment, such as vehicles and white goods."

Applying that test with reference to the prior art the hearing officer, Dr. Porter, could find only 2 claims that could possibly disclose an inventive step. He therefore remitted the application to the examiner for further consideration.

That's it really! But I couldn't resist blogging about a case from Summer Wine Country.

Yorkshire needs a Patents County Court in the North

2010-11-11T08:11:00.009Z

The Leeds City Region has the greatest concentration of professional and financial expertise in the UK outside London.

Great international law firms such as Addleshaw Goddard, DLA Piper, Hammonds and Pinsent Curtis have their roots in the region. So, too, do great patent agencies like Appleyard Lees and Harrison Goddard Foote. Having a population of nearly 3 million and 100,000 businesses the region needs an accessible and cost-effective local forum for the resolution of intellectual property disputes.

S.287 (1) of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 enables the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice any county court as a patents county court and confer on it special jurisdiction to hear and determine patents and designs cases and ancillary matters. Yesterday, our sister blog IP North West carried an article "A Patents County Court for the North". We support that call. Ideally, we should like the Leeds County Court to be designated as a Patents County Court but a designation of any county court anywhere within the M62 corridor would be welcomed by businesses and intellectual property professionals throughout Yorkshire and the Humber.

As IP North West said, this is the best time to campaign for a Patents County Court for the North with the introduction of the new Patents County Rules, the publication of "The Blueprint for Technology" and the Hargreaves review into intellectual property. It also fits in well with another Coalition policy of kick starting local growth by providing the best possible conditions for business (see "Local Growth: realising every place's potential").

If you want to discuss this article or this campaign for a Patents County Court for the North, give us a ring on 0113 320 3232 or contact us through this form.

Leeds Inventors Club: 21 July 2010

2010-07-23T09:52:00.002+01:00

On Wednesday I gave a talk to Leeds Inventors’ Club entitled “Keeping the Sharks at Bay: Resolving Disputes between Co-Inventors, Licensees, Investors and Third Parties”. In it I took four typical case histories which had given rise to difficulties for individual inventors and suggested some remedies. In other words, turning shark into delicious shark’s fin soup. I have amended the slides to take account of the site’s format and posted them to Slideshare.

IPO: Sean Dennehey for Comptroller

2009-11-17T10:06:00.003Z

Yorkshire wants Sean Dennehey to be the next Comptroller and Chief Executive of the Intellectual Property Office. He is already interim comptroller and we want him to keep the job.

If you agree:

read my article in IP/IT Update

lobby Lammy and your MP

support our campaign on twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Xing and every other social networking site using the #sean4comptroller hashtag.

Ian Green's Comments on BarCampBradford

2009-11-16T09:40:00.003Z

Ian Green of Green Communications inspired, piloted and managed BarCampBradford and much if not most of the credit for the success of the day belongs to him.

Ian is a PR wiz who has done marvelous things for some of the biggest companies and institutions in the country as well as individual inventors, start-ups and SME. His clients seem to include a lot of law firms some of whom I know very well. He is a very good speaker and blogger and everything he writes is worth reading.

His latest blog post is "We did a BarCamp" and I commend it to you.

Another Blogger's View of BarCamp

2009-11-16T02:45:00.001Z

I arrived at the WOW Academy at lunch time and so missed the morning's presentations. Charlotte Britton was there though and you can read her appreciation at "Charlotte Britton: Reflections on BarCampBradford".

BarCampBradford Update

2009-11-16T02:12:00.004Z

I have just discovered that the presenters of the excellent session on Second Life were David Batty and Rebecca Barker. Rebecca's website is at http://rebeccap.co.uk/. David has a link to Second Life at http://bit.ly/1SnVBh. His website is at http://www.davidbatty.com/

One of the most useful presentations that I have ever heard - not just at BarCamp but ever - was Ian Smith's talk on Rethinking the Presentation http://bit.ly/77h5G.

There are some really good pictures of the event on Flickr at http://www.flickr.com/photos/greensontour/sets/72157622808510230/

There is a photo of the list of the talks at http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2660/4104806795_6b5e1ba158_o.jpg

Also a picture of the delicious cup cakes which we devoured at the WOW Academy http://tweetphoto.com/c526b2

Anybody who subscribes to twitter can find these and many other links and comments by entering the #bcbradford hash tag.

A wonderful day and many thanks to all who made it possible, particularly Steve Ding and Ian Green.

BarCampBradford

2009-11-15T08:46:00.003Z

Yesterday I attended and spoke at BarCampBradford which took place at the WOW Academy and the National Media Museum. These are two of many world class institutions in Bradford which very few other towns in the United Kingdom can match.

A BarCamp has nothing to do with the Bar (in any sense of the word) and is not really a camp. The best summary of the concept that I have found is the one that appears in Wikipedia:

BarCamp is an international network of user generated conferences (or unconferences) - open, participatory workshop-events, whose content is provided by participants. The first BarCamps focused on early-stage web applications, and related open source technologies, social protocols, and open data formats. The format has also been used for a variety of other topics, including public transit, health care, and political organizing.

The advanced list of presentations included the following:

Google's hidden gems by John McLear - Primary Technology and Welcome3's MD exposes some of googles hidden gems including Android, CSE, Analytics, SSO, Adwords & Adsense.
Twitter for Business - the dos and donts of Twitter and how it can make or damage a brand's reputation - Ian Green
How a small local team of individuals are trying to find new ways of bringing social history to life - and aiming to change attitudes to open data along the way. (~~Jon Eland~~
Rethinking the Presentation - how to not kill people with Powerpoint. - Ian Smith
iPhone Application Development - Things I've learned from making my Zombies game - Matt West
Setting up an ecommerce business & use of social media, blogs, Twitter, Facebook... - Chris Wildman
TBC - Alistair MacDonald
A Decade of WebDesign - Tracking trends in design - Monica Tailor
Retro Gaming - A session, round-table, discussion, demos of retro games and retro tech - Mohsin Ali & Pawel Dubiel
The 'Civic App Store' - Round-table around OpenCities, OpenData, Cities as Operating Systems, Streets as Platforms, Unique AR useage & Mobile apps for cities - Mohsin Ali
Version Control - An introduction to how we use it to develop large CMS projects - Panoetic
Legal Challenges of Web 2.0 - Will cover such issues as ownership of copyright and other intellectual property in user generated content, liability for user generated content, privacy, dispute resolution and much more - Jane Lambert
Internet marketing workshop - want more website visitors? Conversion/sales/downloads? Reputation? Round table IM problem solving with John Allsopp
Drupal For Good - presentation on how Gentlehost are using Drupal for Social Change, then it's over to you for discussing ways in which Drupal can be used for good - Alice Kærast
How to sell yourself better at interview - we've interviewed somewhere in the region of 50-60 developers this year, and only hired two. What we've learned in this process - Adam Hepton
User experience in .net magazine December 2009 - a response on a couple of articles in the latest issue: interview with Brian Kalma from Zappos, and article by Craig Grannell on 'Master user experience design' - Keith Doyle (Usability Analyst)
Making a Game! - A presentation on the process of game making and the various markets. (Simon Barratt - hoping he'll be able to get by just working from his bullet points!)
Get rich with Free Software - Free Software, what it is, how it works and how you can get fat rich with it. John Leach

With 5 presentations at any one time campers had to be selective. Of the published presentations I attended John Leach's talk on Free Software and Ian Smith's on presentations. But there were so many more announced only on the day such as Alex Wolf's talk on 101 tasks in 1,001 days which revealed a really useful time management tool and a fascinating introduction to Second Life by a speaker from Lancashire whose name I wish I had caught. All the discussions were excellent.

I spoke on the law: "The Legal Challenges to Web 2.0" which I presented from SlideShare itself as there was a shortage of screens in the museum, That no doubt explains the rather flattering email that I received from SlideShare just before my presentation:

"Legal Issues of Web 2.0" is being tweeted more than any other document on SlideShare right now. So we've put it on the homepage of SlideShare.net (in the "Hot on Twitter" section).
Well done, you!
- SlideShare Team

I suspect that says rather more about the number of people on twitter who tweet about SlideShare presentations at any one time than the quality of my slides but it was sweet of them to send it.

Best of all were the people I met yesterday from all walks of life such as well as the chance to renew catch up with plenty of old acquaintances. I do hope this event is repeated.

Transfer of Title: Appeal Court Upholds Judge Behrens in Trade Electronics

2009-08-17T05:24:00.003+01:00

In Trade Electronix Ltd v Best Buy Today (Wholesale) Ltd (In Administration) and Another His Honour Judge Behrens, sitting as a judge of the High Court, had decided that title seller given by administrators under s.24 of the Sale of Goods Act 1979 prevailed over that of a company that had contracted to buy but had not taken delivery of the goods prior to the seller#s administration. Though no intellectual property point arose in that case, it considered issues that arise frequently in all industries including consumer electronics distribution. It is important to note that deals similar to those that are the subject of this litigation are nowadays often made electronically with increasing frequency.

The basic facts were that a Mr Singh of Trade Electronix met a Mr Smith of a wholesaler called Best Buy Today (Wholesale) Ltd at Best Buy's warehouse in Leeds and agreed to buy for £150,000 a stock of returned of returned goods that Best Buy had intended to buy from Argos. The purchase from Argos was to be funded by Davenham Trade Finance Ltd which purchased the goods and invoiced them to Best Buy. Before Best Buy could deliver the goods to its customer it went into administration leaving them in Davenham's possession which sold them on.

Trade Electronix sued the administrators and Davenham for wrongful interference with goods. Dismissing the claim the judge relied on s.24 of the Sale of Goods Act 1979, which provides:

"Where a person having sold goods continues or is in possession of the goods, or of the documents of title to the goods, the delivery or transfer by that person, or by a mercantile agent acting for him, of the goods or documents of title under any sale, pledge, or other disposition thereof, to any person receiving the same in good faith and without notice of the previous sale, has the same effect as if the person making the delivery or transfer were expressly authorised by the owner of the goods to make the same"

Trade Elelctronix appealed on the ground that .the goods had never entered into Davenham's possession.

The Court upheld Judge Behrens's decision but on the ground that there had been no binding contract between Trade Electronix and Best Buy. A very unfortunate result for Trade Electronix which lost a bargain through no fault of its own.

The Lord Justices' decision appears to be based entirely on an analysis of correspondence between Mr Smith and Mr. Singh resolves none of the uncertainties produced by s.24. The only way that a purchaser can protect itself is by removing the goods as soon as it buys them. Not always easy when they are resold several times in quick succession.

Trade Marks: FAT BETTY Invalidity Application

2009-06-20T10:19:00.004+01:00

On 16 June 2009 Mrs Ann Corbett dismissed Bettys & Taylor Group Ltd's application for the invalidation of UK registered trade mark FAT BETTY with costs (BL Number 0/163/09). The mark had been registered by Mr. Jonathan Kidd who carries on business in the name or style of "Cheese & Co." from an industrial estate near Tockwith. In her judgment, the hearing officer referred to Mr. Kidd as "Cheese",

Mr. Kidd sells a range of nibbles and savoury biscuits in the name known collectively as "A Taste of Yorkshire". Among the products in that range "organic cheesey nibbles" that are sold under the registered trade mark in the drums shown on the right.

The applicant company runs among other businesses several tea shops in Harrogate, Illley, Northallerton and York under the BETTYS appellation. It had registered the word BETTYS simpliciter and in combination with other words as a trade mark for a large number of goods and services. The group challenged the registration under s.5 (2) (b), (3), (4) (a) of the Trade Marks Act 1994.

This is a case that had attracted a lot of local interest in the national and Yorkshire press with articles in The Daily Telegraph, Wetherby News and the Yorkshire Business Desk. It is also of interest to intellectual property practitioners in view of the group's earlier successful opposition to Granada TV's Betty Kitchen Coronation Street Application [2002] RPC 840.

Finding that the goods for which Mr Kidd's mark had been registered was identical to those of the earlier marks, Mrs. Corbett compared the marks:

"32. Cheese’s mark consists of an ordinary English word, the adjective Fat, and the common name Betty. I consider the word Fat and its meaning, and the fact that Betty is a name, to be well known by the public at large. The word Fat has somewhat negative connotations in relation to foodstuffs, as B&T submitted at the hearing, and is therefore somewhat unusual but the words hang together to create a distinctive whole. B&T’s marks are single words which are suggestive of the possessive form of the name Betty (and perhaps more so in relation to the marks in cursive form). I say “suggestive” because of the absence of the necessary apostrophe. (I note that B&T say they originally used their marks in the possessive form but have since dropped the use of the apostrophe).
33. To the extent that the name BETTY is common to both marks, albeit in its (quasi) possessive form in the case of B&T’s marks, there is a degree of visual and aural similarity. In my view, the singular and the possessive forms are close in appearance and potentially more so in sound, given that when goods are referred to by their brand it is sometimes in the possessive form, as in “Fat Betty’s biscuits”. But there are other, quite clear differences. Cheese’s mark is not just the word Betty; it also contains the word Fat as the first element. Given its relative position in the mark, it is unlikely that the word Fat will be overlooked, either when the mark is referred to, or in its impact on the eye. Balancing the similarity of Betty and BETTYS with the differences in the marks as wholes, namely, that Cheese’s mark is composed of two words, the additional word Fat as the first part of the mark (which is generally
considered as being of most significance) and, to a lesser extent, the addition of the letter “S” to B&T’s marks, I am of the view that the respective marks are visually and aurally distinct.
34. As I indicated above, Cheese have provided evidence that Fat Betty is a landmark on the North Yorkshire Moors. Whilst I am prepared to accept that some people, on hearing the mark, may bring the landmark to mind, for others not familiar with the area, the mark will simply bring to mind a female called Betty who is overweight. B&T’s marks bring to mind a business run by or having a connection with a woman called Betty. There is some degree of conceptual similarity between the respective marks but the inclusion of the word Fat in Cheese’s mark creates a specific impression of size which is absent from the earlier marks."

Since both parties agreed at the hearing that the purchase of such goods will rely heavily on the visual impression the consumer has of the marks, she took the view that the the visual comparison between the marks was of greater than usual importance. Taking all relevant factors into account and applying the global approach required of her, the hearing officer found the respective marks were not likely to be confused even though the goods were identical.

The absence of confusion also disposed of any claim in passing off which disposed of the objection under s.5 (4) (a) and having decided that the registered mark was neither the same as or similar to any of Betty & Taylor's earlier marks there was no need to consider the s.5 (3) ground.

Business Link: Business Link Berkshire & Wiltshire Ltd v Fearn

2009-05-27T06:36:00.003+01:00

On 1 April 2008 Business Link West Yorkshire merged with its counterparts in North and South Yorkshire and Humberside to form Business Link Yorkshire. Similar mergers took place in the North-West and other regions of England. On its national website Business Link describes itself as "a free business advice and support service, available online and through local advisers".

Business Link is the conduit through which considerable sums of public money are distributed. No doubt such funding stimulates demand for goods and services creating jobs and other benefits but there are occasions when things go very wrong. Such an occasion led to the appeal in Business Link Berkshire & Wiltshire Ltd v Fearn [2009] EWCA Civ 455 (20 May 2009).

This was a claim by Business Link to recoup moneys paid under a rural regeneration scheme. Business Link had channelled £20,000 of money that had been provided by the government to assist rural communities to recover from the foot and mouth disease outbreak to set up a new company called Regional Producers Ltd. The transcript does not make clear what business the new company was to transact beyond stating that it was to consist of producers from all over Wiltshire. Some of that money was to be paid to solicitors, some to media consultants and some to the defendant personally. Business Link claimed back that money on the ground that it had been obtained by fraud. The district judge who tried the claim found that the defendant had indeed made a fraudulent misrepresentation but awarded Business Link just £2,000 of its claim on the ground that the balance would have been paid anyway.

Not surprisingly both sides appealed: the defendant on the ground that his reputation had been besmirched and Business Link for the balance of its money. Although Lord Justice Waller considered a retrial over such insubstantial sums to be "unattractive in the extreme" the Court of Appeal felt that it had no choice. The district judge's finding that the balance would have been due anyway was contradicted by correspondence and there was some evidence that funding had been approved even before the allegedly fraudulent misrepresentation had been made.

The allegedly fraudulent misrepresentation was that Regional Producers Ltd. had 25 members. This was to meet a stipulation by an intermediary known as Great Western Enterprises Ltd. that had channelled the regeneration money from the South West England Rural Development Agency to Business Link. The reason for that stipulation is unclear and the Business Link adviser had hinted to the defendant that it could be relaxed. The defendant had certainly provided a list of names but it was not clear whether it was a list of actual shareholders, as Business Link alleged, or merely of persons interested in taking a shareholding as the defendant contended.

The tragedy is that a great deal more than £20,000 will already have been spent on this litigation to bring it to this point and even more is likely to be spent before it is resolved.

KickStart or KickOut

2009-03-08T00:12:00.005Z

Apologies to the good people of Bradford but I am moving my pro bono IP and technology clinics to Leeds with immediate effect.

I have just received an impertinent letter from KickStart threatening not to renew my contract for the dubious privilege of providing professional services to Bradford KickStart clients at a fraction of the market rate when it expires at the end of March unless I lodge two years detailed accounts and produce evidence that I practise in Bradford.

A barrister's accounts are a secret between the barrister, the Revenue and her accountant. What possible interest Bradford KickStart, the Chamber of Commerce or the borough council that funds the scheme can have in my affairs I do not know. It's pure nosiness and nothing more. Never in the 800 year history of the English bar has a client demanded such a thing. Can you imagine a prisoner in the shadow of the noose or electric chair asking Marshall Hall or Clarence Darrow for his accounts?

As for evidence of practice in Bradford, if the monthly pro bono clinics that I have conducted from Velocity and Gumption aren't evidence enough - not to mention all the business club workshops, exhibitions, seminars and conferences many of which were arranged by the Chamber itself - I don't know what is.

Leeds NTI has very kindly offered to host the clinic every third Wednesday between 15:00 and 17:00 where I shall share the list with Sara Ludlam. Appointments can be made through my clerk on 0970 990 5081. Folk from Bradford will be very welcome. Leeds has an abundance of specialist solicitors, patent and trade mark agents whereas poor old Bradford has none. For a metropolitan area of just under 500,000 that's quite a lacuna.

Leeds Grub

2009-02-16T09:33:00.004Z

Lawyers and patent and trade mark agents are human and have to eat sometime just like everybody else. Restaurant guides are not always reliable or indeed useful. In my humble opinion Leeds has a greater need than most cities for a reliable restaurant vade mecum because it has more than its fair share of over-priced and mediocre eateries.

Imagine, then, my delight at discovering Katie Bolton's Leeds Grub blog. She seems to have Leeds and surrounding districts covered - even extending to Northern Ireland in one excursion. It is written simply and directly from the perspective of a mortgage-paying-employment-insecure Yorkshire customer rather than a critic on expenses. And the pictures. Katie photographs the dishes as well as the interiors (and exteriors) of the eateries. Some of her pics are mouth watering. Others less so.

The blog's URL is http://www.leedsgrub.blogspot.com/ and you can follow her on twitter (which is where I discovered her) at http://twitter.com/Leedsgrub.

Web 2.0: Bradford BarCamp

2009-01-27T01:44:00.004Z

BarCamp has nothing to do with Cumberland Lodge. In fact it has nothing much to do with barristers save that I will be there. I have always intended to put my name down for one of these events and never quite got round to doing so. I missed the Manchester and Leeds BarCamps. I am certainly not going to miss the one in Bradford.

What is this BarCamp, I hear you say? The website describes it as "an ad-hoc gathering born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment. It is an intense event with discussions, demos, and interaction from attendee" but, of course, you can read it for yourself can't you. You can also watch the YouTube clip of what happened in the Orlando BarCamp.

The Bradford BarCamp will take place at ShipleyCollege on 18 April 2009 from 10:00 to 17:00. I've offered to talk about the legal issues. I think these issues are important but I am not sure that I will get an audience. Ian Green has some very good topics. Ian spoke at Bmedi@ last year and gave a very entertaining talk. He claimed to be the man who got everybody to thing that a particular day in January was the most miserable day of the year. It is worth attending the event just to hear his contributions.

You can register for the event through the website and I would recommend your getting a move on. Places for BarCamps usually fill up very quickly.

Accolade for IP Yorkshire in the Flood Report

2009-01-15T07:38:00.005Z

IP Yorkshire was mentioned in the report "Straight There No Detours: Direct Access to Barristers" by Professor John Flood and Avis Whyte of Westminster University which was commissioned by the Bar Council. The Bar Council has not yet got round to posting the report to its website but anybody interested can download the report from the Social Science Research Network's site at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1321492.

At page 21, Flood and Whyte write:

"Most types of work appeared suitable for Public Access. One particular area mentioned to us was the ability of counsel to give “red light/green light” opinions on cases. This could be done far quicker and for less cost than by a solicitor. An example of the speed of reaction by barristers is given by Jane Lambert in her blog “IPYorkshire”. In a trademark matter the barrister was able to examine the papers and form an opinion within a few hours and refer the client to appropriate patent and trademark agents (she believed it necessary that the response the client needed to make should come under the letterhead of a professional rather than under his own hand)."

I think that must have been a reference to my post of 12 Sep "No Names, No Pack Drill but here is a Success Story that shows how the Panel works" The client wrote quite a nice little commendation for us a few days later in "Trade Marks: A Very Satisfied Client"

This blog was also commended on the next page (as were our chambers) for making public access services known to the public:

"And some barristers have developed their own websites and blogs as a way of informing potential clients of their services. For example, IPYorkshire directs itself at the IP industry in the north-east, as does NIPC Law."

In the year that two of the biggest sets in Manchester, namely Peel Court and 8 King Street, folded it is nice to be able to report something positive from my profession.

Social Networking: Process can be served by Facebook

2009-01-12T21:26:00.010Z

As most of my clients and connections in Yorkshire and Humberside know, IP Yorkshire is on Facebook. We're also on LinkedIn and twitter if anybody is interested. These are social networking sites where people go for as bit of fun. However, that may change with the decision of Master Harper of the Supreme Court of the Australian Capital Territory (Canberra) to permit a mortgagee's solicitors to serve process by "poking" in a possession action against two mortgagors whom it was unable to serve by any other way.

As it happened, the master's permission was given too late because the mortgagors withdrew their profile from Facebook before they could be served. But the decision has resounded around the world with Facebook apparently rejoicing:

"We're pleased to see the Australian court validate Facebook as a reliable, secure and private medium for communication. The ruling is also an interesting indication of the increasing role that Facebook is playing in people's lives,"

(see "Australia OKs Facebook for serving lien notice" on Yahoo). Some some informed comments by Antipodean counsel, you can do worse than read the post on IP Wars by my WIPO colleague Warwick Rothnie.

Could it happen here? CPR 6.3 (1) permits a claim form to be served by any of the following methods:

"(a) personal service in accordance with rule 6.5;
(b) first class post, document exchange or other service which provides for delivery on the next business day, in accordance with Practice Direction A supplementing this Part;
(c) leaving it at a place specified in rule 6.7, 6.8, 6.9 or 6.10;
(d) fax or other means of electronic communication in accordance with Practice Direction A supplementing this Part; or
(e) any method authorised by the court under rule 6.15."

As for other methods of service, CPR 6.15 provides

"(1) Where it appears to the court that there is a good reason to authorise service by a method or at a place not otherwise permitted by this Part, the court may make an order permitting service by an alternative method or at an alternative place.
(2) On an application under this rule, the court may order that steps already taken to bring the claim form to the attention of the defendant by an alternative method or at an alternative place is good service.
(3) An application for an order under this rule –
(a) must be supported by evidence; and
(b) may be made without notice.
(4) An order under this rule must specify –
(a) the method or place of service;
(b) the date on which the claim form is deemed served; and
(c) the period for –
(i) filing an acknowledgment of service;
(ii) filing an admission; or
(iii) filing a defence."

That appears to be, if anything, sligjtly broader than Reg 6460 of the Court Procedure Rules of the Australiabn Capital Territory under which service through Facebook was authorized. I have to say that I think service could be effected through Facebook or some other social networking site here.