Geographical Indications - "If it's outside Yorkshire it's not worth ..................!"

The first day of August is Yorkshire day. Originally it commemorated the battle of Minden 1759 at which the 51st Regiment of Foot distinguished itself but it is now a celebration of all things Yorkshire. My home town of Holmfirth celebrated the day with all sorts of events as you can see from the Holmfirth Yorkshire Day Facebook page. I think that there were more Yorkshire flags around town for Yorkshire day than there were union flags for the royal wedding or even HM's diamond jubilee.

And why not. Yorkshire is a grand place, isn't it.  In the words of the Yorkshire Airlines sketch "If it's outside Yorkshire it's not worth bloody visiting. And the same goes for food and drink, right.  So how can you make sure that what you eat and sup actually originate from God's own county.

Well art 22 (2) of TRIPS requires members of the World Trade Organization to "provide the legal means for interested parties to prevent:

(a) the use of any means in the designation or presentation of a good that indicates or suggests that the good in question originates in a geographical area other than the true place of origin in a manner which misleads the public as to the geographical origin of the good;
(b) any use which constitutes an act of unfair competition within the meaning of Article 10bis of the Paris Convention (1967)."

For the purposes of this article geographical indications are defined by art 22 (1) as "indications which identify a good as originating in the territory of a Member, or a region or locality in that territory, where a given quality, reputation or other characteristic of the good is essentially attributable to its geographical origin."

Traditionally the UK has protected geographical indications by the registration of collective and certification marks under s.49 and s.50 of the Trade Marks Act 1994 and the law of passing off (see Bollinger v Costa Brava Wine Co Ltd [1960] Ch 262, Vine Products Ltd v Mackenzie & Co Ltd [1969] RPC 1, John Walker & Sons Ltd v Henry Ost & Co Ltd [1970] 1 WLR 917 and Taittinger v Allbev Ltd [1993] FSR 641). These are now reinforced by Regulation (EU) No 1151/2012 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 21 November 2012 on quality schemes for agricultural products and foodstuffs (OJ 14.12.2012 L343/1).

This regulation provides three types of protection:

• Protected designation of origin ("PDO") which covers agricultural products and foodstuffs that are produced, processed and prepared in a given geographical area using recognised know-how;

• Protected geographical indication ("PGI") which covers agricultural products and foodstuffs closely linked to the geographical area where at least one of the stages of production, processing or preparation takes place in the area; and

• Traditional speciality guaranteed ("TSG"} which highlights traditional character, either in the composition or means of production.

Art 13 (3) of the Regulation requires  member states to take appropriate administrative and judicial steps to prevent or stop the unlawful use of PDI and PGI that are produced or marketed in their territories. 

Applications for registration of a product are made to the competent authority of any of the member states which in the case of the UK means the Regional and Local Food Team, Food and Family Group at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs ("DEFRA"), Area 8E, 9 Millbank, Nobel House 

17 Smith Square, London SW1P 3JR. Tel: 020 7238 6623 Fax: 020 7238 5728. The application then proceeds according to the following schematic:

So what Yorkshire goodies have achieved protected status under any of those schemes? Not a lot as it happens.  Swaledale and Swaledale ewes cheese and Yorkshire forced rhubarb so far though an application has just been published for Wensleydale cheese.

Geographical indications will be one of the topics I will discuss in my seminar on Branding - Trade Marks, Passing off, Domain Names, Geographical Indications in London on 25 Sept for which there are still a very small number of places. If you want to discuss how to achieve PDO, PGI or TSG status for your local produce or indeed to object to someone else's application for such status contact my  my clerk Stephen on 01484 599090 or fill in my contact form.  You can also follow me on twitter, Facebook, G+, Linkedin and Xing.

Forthcoming IP Related Events in Yorkshire

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Yorkshire Puddings     Source  Wikipedia

The Intellectual Property Office has just updated its calendar of events.   The following are taking place in Yorkshire:

• 24  Sep 2013   The Business Growth Show between 8:00 and 15:00 at the John Charles Centre for Sports;
• 1 Oct 2013 "Get it right - first time" seminar on intellectual property, 09:00 - 12:00 Central Library,  Leeds, LS1 3AB;
• I Oct 2013  "Get it right - fist time" seminar on intellectual property, 14:00 - 17:00, Central Library, Surrey Street, Sheffield, S1 1XZ;
• 2 Oct 2013 "Brand Yorkshire" conference and exhibition, 09:00 to 17:00 at Pavilions in Harrogate.

Here are some more that I just happen to know about:

• Institute of Trade Mark Agents ("ITMA"), "The Guardians of the Orb: A case study on the protection of Harris Tweed, Certification Marks, Acts of Parliament and much more" by Colin Hulme, Burness Paull & Williamsons LLP at Walker Morris, 12 King Street, Leeds, LS1 2HL between 14:00 and 15:30 on 16 Sep 2013;
• Business of Ballet, 23 Sept 2013 between 07:30 and 10:00 at Quarry Hill, Leeds, LS2 7PA which I mentioned in  "Business of Ballet: Northern Ballet's bid to educate us Philistines" 28 July 2013 Terpsichore (my blog on ballet just to prove that I have a life outside the law); and
• Venturefest Yorkshire 13 Mach 2013 at York Racecourse.

Next, there are the regulars:

• Sheffield Inventors Group which meets on the first Monday of every month at Sheffield Central Library between 18:00 and 19:45.   Here are the speakers they have lined up for the Autumn: 2 Sept, Emma Digby, 7 Oct Roger Tipple and 4 Nov John Biddle, Call 0114 273 4736 or email information.library@sheffield.gov.uk; 
• Leeds Inventors Group which meets at Leeds Central Library, Leeds, LS1 3AB between 18:00 and 19:45 on the second Tuesday of the month; and 
• Imran Ali's :LSx which runs LSx Cafe, TED Global and Leeds Girl Geeks Dinner and many other events that seems to attract some of the most interesting people in Yorkshire..

Finally, there are the patent clinics run by the Chartered Institute of Patent Agents at Leeds and Sheffield Central Libraries and my clinic between 10:00 and 12:00 on the second Tuesday of every month at Barnsley Business and Innovation Centre.

If you want to know about IP events elsewhere in the UK check out the IPO, CIPA and ITMA websites. If anybody wants a speaker from our chambers for an IP related event please contact my clerk Stephen on 01484 599090 or fill in my contact form.

Practising the Dark Arts in Leeds and Sheffield - roll up to be enlightened

Leeds Inventors Group

A patent is granted for inventions that are new and involve an inventive step.   An invention may be new to you and to everyone else you know but if someone somewhere in the world dreamed it up before you, you don't get your patent. If by some chance you do get a patent and your invention turns out not to have been new you stand to lose your patent despite the fortune you may have paid in professional, official and renewal fees to get it. So searching should be important to every inventor.

Searching should also be important to anyone who may be accused of infringing the patent. If he or she finds that the invention has been anticipated or that it was obvious then the patent would be invalid. And if the patent is invalid there is nothing to infringe.

Searching for patents is a dark art practised by patent agents, librarians examiners and others at midnight on moonless nights in Armley cemetery with their familiar (an immortal cat called Ginger who is himself something of an inventor) after dancing anti-clockwise round a computer in a pentagon.

However, two of them have broken ranks.  Ged and Stef will share their secrets with you at a Patent Searching Workshop at 18:00 this evening at Leeds Central Library. There are still one or two places left so if you want to find out about this topic then now's your chance. You can register for the event through Eventbrite and I hope that at least some of my instructing solicitors will do just that.

Sheffield Inventors Group has already had its July meeting - a fascinating talk by Pat Ross of Creative Genie on identifying your USP. Another dark art perhaps.   You can find my write-up at "Identifying your USP - the Overlap between Design and Invention" 9 July 2013 Inventors Club

IP Litigation in Leeds - Past, Present and Future

Source Wikipedia 

Unlike Lancashire, Durham and Northumberland, Yorkshire did not have a palatinate court before the Courts Act 1971. Consequently no intellectual property or other chancery litigation could be conducted in Leeds until after the Durham and Lancaster Palatinates Courts had merged with the Chancery Division . After that merger, Judge Blackett-Ord and his deputies Judges Fitzhugh and O'Donoghue heard chancery business in Leeds as well as Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle and Preston. Those judges did not spend all their time in the High Court. They also sat in the county courts and even in the Crown Court.

When Judge Blackett-Ord retired in 1987 the government of the day considered the abolition of the chancery jurisdiction in the North altogether.  Chancery practitioners in Leeds and Manchester under the leadership of my deputy head of chambers Peter Keenan and supported by James Allen and John Behrens (who were then the leading and indeed practically the only chancery practitioners in Leeds) produced alternative proposals to which I contributed the economics section. These were accepted by the Lord Chancellor who appointed Sir Richard Scott as Vice-Chancellor of the County Palatine of Lancaster. In that role Sir Richard sat on at least one interim applications (or motions) day and some of the more important trials in Leeds.

There had always been a number of building societies in West Yorkshire. The Building Societies Act 1986  allowed them to demutualize and become banks. As most of the other great cities of the North of England declined with the contraction of manufacturing Leeds found a new role as a financial centre. Those financial institutions and the businesses and professional practices that supported them required sophisticated legal advice on all aspects of commercial law locally. Local demand for commercial legal services catapulted firms like Booth & Co, Dibb Lupton, Hammond Suddards, Hepworth & Chadwick and Simpson Curtis into major international practices.

Several of those firms had excellent intellectual property and technology lawyers such as Richard Sutton and Simon Chalton at Dibb Luton and Dai Davis at Hepworth & Chadwick. They trained many other good IP lawyers in Leeds. While most of their work went to London some of it was remained in Leeds. As the only IP practitioner outside London at that time much of it came to me.

S.61 (1)  and paragraph 1 (i) of Schedule I to of the Senior Courts Act 1981 allocated intellectual property cases to the Chancery Division. S.6 (1) (a) of the Act established the Patents Court as part of the Chancery Division while s.62 (1) and assigned to it

"such proceedings relating to patents as are within the jurisdiction conferred on it by the Patents Act 1977, and such other proceedings relating to patents or other matters as may be prescribed."

S.287 (1) of the Copyright, Designs  and Patents Act 1988 enabled the Minister of Justice to

"designate any county court as a patents county court and confer on it jurisdiction (its “special jurisdiction”) to hear and determine such descriptions of proceedings—
(a) relating to patents or designs, or
(b) ancillary to, or arising out of the same subject matter as, proceedings relating to patents or designs,
as may be specified in the order."

Only the Edmonton and Central London County Courts have ever been designated as patents county courts and there has only been one county court for the whole of England and Wales at any one time.

CPR 63.2 (2) requires patents, registered and registered Community designs, semiconductor topography and plant varieties claims to be brought in the Patents Court and Patents County Courts. All other intellectual property cases must be brought in the Chancery Division (which of course sits in Leeds) and any county court where there is also a chancery district registry (which includes Leeds County Court) pursuant to CPR 63.13. 

Until 30 Sept 2010 the Patents County Court was almost as expensive as the Patents Court. In its report "The Enforcement of Patent Rights" of November 2003, IPAC (the Intellectual Property Advisory Committee) reported at page 50 that the average cost of an action in the Patents County Court was between £150,000 and £250,000. Where the claimant was in Yorkshire there were considerable cost savings in litigating in Leeds.

That advantage disappeared on 1 Oct 2010 with changes to CPR Parts 63 and 44 that expedited the procedure and limited the costs of litigation in the Patents County Court (see my article on the "New Patents County Court Rules" 31 Oct 2010 NIPC law). With the new small claims track for IP cases which was launched on 1 Oct 2012 there was even less incentive to litigate in Leeds (see Jane Lambert "The New Small IP Claims Jurisdiction" 5 March 2012).

However, this may change. The Patents County Court is now very busy with long waits for case management conferences and trial dates.   S.17 (1) of the Crime and Courts Act 2013 establishes a single County Court for England and Wales with national jurisdiction that can sit anywhere pursuant to Schedule 9. Paragraph 4 of the Patents Court Guide already provides that:

"If the parties so desire, for the purpose of saving time or costs, the Patents Court will sit out of London."

Paragraph 1.5 of the Patents County Court Guide contains a corresponding provision. There is no reason why the Minister of Justice should not appoint one or more circuit judges or recorders with experience of patents to hear IP cases in Leeds or indeed anywhere else in England or Wales for that matter. Similarly, there is no reason why a district judge should not be appointed to hear small IP claims in Leeds or other towns and cities.

Although I have now joined 4-5 Gray's Inn Square, I still live in Holmfirth, I can still be consulted at the Huddersfield Media Centre and I can still appear for you at short notice at the Leeds Combined Court Centre. Should you wish to discuss this post please  complete my contact form or by call me on 01484 599090 or 0113 320 3232..

Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre's Factory 2050

Images: Bond Bryan from the AMRC website

The University of Sheffield Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) with Boeing describes itself as "a world-class centre for advanced machining and materials research for aerospace and other high-value manufacturing sectors." It claims to be "a partnership between industry and academia, which has become
a model for research centres worldwide.".

Membership of the AMRC is open to companies which wish to participate in its research programmes.  There are two tiers of membership:

• Tier 1: for a subscription of £200,000 per year, Tier 1 members get a seat on the board and thus an opportunity to influence the direction of future research, to participate in, and obtain the results of all generic projects and an opportunity to specify any number of specific projects which are presented to the board for ranking and approval as funds become available; and
• Tier 2: for a subscription of 30,000, Tier 2 members participate in, and obtain the results of all generic projects, have privileged access to the AMRC’s resources and capabilities and representation on the board by a single board member.

According to David Parkin of the Yorkshire Business Desk, the Centre has recently secured £43 million funding for a state-of-the-art research factory (7 June 2013). Known as "The AMRC Factory 2050", it is said to be "the UK’s first fully reconfigurable assembly and component manufacturing facility for collaborative research, capable of rapidly switching production between different high-value components and one-off parts." Rotherham Business News describes it as "the World's most flexible factory" (6 June 2013).

This new project should provide opportunities for businesses throughout South Yorkshire and beynod.  With a member living in Yorkshire we are well placed to advise those businesses on intellectual property, licensing, and joint ventures and to provide representation in negotiations (see "Supporting Yorkshire Business" 22 May 2013 4-5 IP & Tech blog). Those services include the monthly pro bono clinic at Barnsley BIC which you can access by clicking the contact form or by calling us on 01484 599090 or 0113 320 3232.

What could be done with the Bradford Odeon

Bradford Odeon in 1937 Source Wikipedia

The Bradford Odeon is a magnificent building set between the Alhambra Theatre and The National Media Museum in one of England's handsomest cities. Like much of that great city the Odeon has seen better days. It closed in 2000 and by at least one account it is in a terrible state of repair (see Will Kilner "Former Odeon 'unsafe' says survey", Bradford Telegraph & Argus, 29 Sept 2008. There have been calls to pull it down - even though there is already a massive derelict area of the city centre where a shopping centre was supposed to be - and the building has been saved largely by the efforts of BORG (Bradford Odeon Rescue Group), its allies and supporters.

Recently the burghers of Bradford enjoyed two bits of good news. First their football team won an important match at Wembley (BBC Sport 18 May 2013). Secondly, the local authority has acquired the Odeon for £1 (Rachel Covill "Odeon set to transfer to the Council" The Business Desk 1 May 2013). The question that now arises is what should be done with that magnificent building.

Here is my suggestion offered tentatively by an outsider albeit a good friend and neighbour of the city of Bradford. How about turning the building into an arts centre to celebrate the cultural diversity of your great city?  There is a model for such a centre in Tottenham (another community with a rich cultural diversity and a football club) namely the Bernie Grant Arts Centre.  

I visited the Centre last Saturday with a friend from Bradford who was already in London  for the football. I was there for to see Ballet Black as I greatly prefer ballet to the spectacle of 22 men and a ref chasing a ball around a field - a tedious exercise if ever there was one. You can see my review of the performance in "Why Ballet Black is Special" Terpsichore 20 May 2013.

Ballet Black performed in a very comfortable auditorium - by which I mean there was plenty of leg room - but there was much more to the Centre than that. There was a restaurant called the Blooming Scent, serving jollof rice from West Africa, jerk chicken from Jamaica and chips from London, whose proprietor, Gina Moffatt, has been honoured by the Prince of Wales and an enterprise centre with plenty of interesting local businesses. 

Now that I am spending a lot of time in London I hope to get to know the Centre and offer it my support in the way that I have supported entrepreneurs in Yorkshire with clinics, clubs, newsletters and blogs like this. But I shall never forget where I have come from.   If ever the transformation of the Odeon building - or any other Bradford business - needs the sort of help and advice I can offer I and my colleagues will be there for it.  And I now have lots of great colleagues to help me.  

If anyone wants to discuss this article call me on 0113 320 3232 or 01484 599090 or fill in my contact form. You can also follow me on Facebook, Linkedin, twitter or Xing.

Patent Box and R & D Credits: Dan Brookes's Slides

Tax Relief for Innovation: Patent Box and R & D Credits Regime by Dan Brookes of BDO 

I introduced the patent box and our guest speaker in "Leeds Inventors Group: Patent Box and R & D Credits" 4 May 2013. Here are his slides.

We had a good meeting on 8 May 2013 and although we were a little low on inventors we had rather more accountants and lawyers in the audience.  We were particularly pleased to welcome Ros Beattie of Company Solutions and Jordi Farré Gasol of Barcelona who is currently working with Schofield Sweeney of Leeds.  Ros knows more than most about start-ups having been chair of Bmedia. She is now contributing her experience to the Business Enterprise Fund.

In the questions and answers session after the talk, I asked "what happens to the tax if a patent is revoked? Must the tax be repaid?  This was a question that I had raised in similar presentations at Daresbury and Liverpool the previous month.  Dan did not know the answer off the top of his head but he promised to look it up.   This is his reply:

"Vince and I have spoken about the query you addressed with us at our respective events in Liverpool and Leeds. The attached link to HMRC manuals appears to infer that HMRC take the view that there will be no retrospective clawback of patent box benefits where it is clear that the company has claimed on a patent that has been granted by a qualifying patent office, even in the situation that down the line events take place which means that sales of product are no longer covered by the patent. In this scenario benefits are denied going forward but there is no retrospective clawback of relief.
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/cirdmanual/CIRD210180.htm

I hope this is helpful."

It is indeed helpful and my thanks to Dan and Vince Walker of the Manchester office of BDO for their trouble.

A lot of useful information on the patent box and tax law relating to IP generally can be obtained from Intellectual Property Tax which is edited by Anne Fairpo of Atlas Tax Chambers.  Atlas merged with 4-5 Gray's Inn Square just about the time I joined the set.  Anne is also one of the contributing editors to IP Finance. 

If anyone wants to discuss this article or IP or tax generally you can call us in Leeds on 0113 320 3232, Huddersfield on 01484 599090 or London on 020 7404 5252.   You can also contact us through our message form.