About IP Law
With the laws around Intellectual Property and Information Technology changing all the time, keeping pace is hard enough. But knowing the law isn’t enough. You need to know what those changes are going to mean for your clients. The big picture, the fine detail, the impact and the next steps.
Copyright
Practical information about copyright, moral rights, performers’ rights and rights in performances. Get precedent copyright assignments and licences here.
Trade marks
Practical information about trade marks, passing off, geographical indications and anti-counterfeiting. Get precedent trade mark assignments and licences here.
Patents
Practical information about patents and supplementary protection certificates. Get precedent patent assignments and licences here.
IP disputes
Get guidance on strategic and practical steps for dealing with IP disputes, including ways of trying to avoid them in the first place. Our case analysis highlights points from judgments so you can be confident at work.
Latest IP News
The Specialised Committee on Intellectual Property under the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement has published the minutes from its fourth meeting,...
General-purpose AI model providers like Microsoft, OpenAI and Google will now see softened copyright-related measures in the second draft of the EU’s...
The European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) has published a comprehensive study examining the economic performance of companies holding...
IP analysis: The European Patent Office (EPO) regularly applies the problem and solution approach when deciding whether an invention involves an...
This week's edition of IP weekly highlights includes: a hand-picked summary of news analysis, updates and new content from the world of IP. These...
Latest IP Practice Notes
Declaration of a director's interests—the statutory provisionsA director who is in any way, directly or indirectly, interested in:•a proposed...
Copyright theft and video piracyCopyright theftTheft of copyright is criminalised by the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (CDPA 1988), the...
Exclusion and limitation of liabilityThis Practice Note considers exclusion and limitation of liability in business-to-business (B2B) contracts. It...
Infringement of UK registered and unregistered designsThis Practice Note discusses infringement of UK registered and unregistered designs, including...
Brexit—implications for data protection [Archived]ARCHIVED: This archived Practice Note provides information on the Data Protection, Privacy and...
Latest IP Precedents
Confidentiality letter—private M&A—asset purchase—corporate sellerStrictly private and confidentialTo: [insert buyer name][insert buyer address]Date:...
Confidentiality letter—private M&A—share purchase—corporate sellerStrictly private and confidentialTo: [insert buyer name][insert buyer address]Date:...
Confidentiality agreement—corporate joint ventureThis Agreement is made on [insert day and month] 20[insert year]Parties1[Insert name of first...
Draft Settlement agreement—pre-action settlementThis Agreement is made the day of 20[insert year]Parties:1[insert name of party], a company registered...
Draft Settlement agreement—for settling disputes post-commencement of proceedingsThis Agreement is made the day of 20[insert year]Parties:1[insert...
Latest IP Q&As
Featured IP content
Introduction to passing off
Introduction to passing offUnlike many other countries, the UK has no unfair competition law. Brand owners seeking to prevent competitors from...
Copyright infringement—remedies
Copyright infringement—remediesThis Practice Note covers the remedies available for copyright infringement.The remedies available in cases of...
Intellectual property international treaties and conventions
Intellectual property international treaties and conventionsIP laws are almost always national in nature. However, there are many conventions and...
Introduction to revocation of patents
Introduction to revocation of patentsPatents may be revoked, that is, taken off the register of patents, if it is decided that they are invalid in...
Joint ownership of intellectual property rights
Joint ownership of intellectual property rightsWhen parties collaborate on creative projects or research and development, complex questions arise...
Exploiting intellectual property rights
Exploiting intellectual property rightsIP rights are only valuable if they make money for the business. Even if they are used in the business, a...
Third party intellectual property rights indemnity clause—pro-supplier
1 Intellectual property rights indemnity 1.1 The Supplier shall defend the Customer against any third party claim that...
Commercial use of fonts and typefaces
Commercial use of fonts and typefacesTypefaces are a key component of a brand’s identity, using a unique typeface helps a business to distinguish...
Sub-licensing intellectual property rights
Sub-licensing intellectual property rightsAn intellectual property (IP) owner may choose to license its IP to a third party. This can be an effective...
Copyright—authorship and ownership
Copyright—authorship and ownershipThe Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (CDPA 1988) defines the author of a work as the person who created it....
Patent term, renewal and restoration
Patent term, renewal and restorationThis Practice Note explains how long a patent lasts, how it must be maintained by renewal in order to last that...
Moral rights
Moral rightsThe nature of moral rightsThe Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (CDPA 1988) confers a number of personal rights on authors that are...
Civil and criminal remedies for intellectual property infringement
Civil and criminal remedies for intellectual property infringementThis Practice Note provides an overview of the civil and criminal remedies which can...
Defences and exceptions to trade mark infringement
Defences and exceptions to trade mark infringementThe registration of a trade mark gives the owner the exclusive right to prevent others from using...
Parallel imports
Parallel importsScopeThis Practice Note explains trade mark law on parallel trade. Parallel imports, or ‘grey market’ goods, are genuine goods that...
Trade mark assignment and licensing
Trade mark assignment and licensingTrade marks can be exploited in a number of ways. They might be directly exploited by a trade mark owner (ie by...
Copyright infringement
Copyright infringementThe Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (CDPA 1988) gives the copyright owner exclusive rights in the UK to carry out...
IP rights and semiconductors
IP rights and semiconductorsBackground to semiconductorsA semiconductor is essentially any material which has electrical conductivity and can thus...
Associated legal terms
Artistic works
An original artistic work attracts copyright and such works means a graphic work, photograph, sculpture, collage, a work of architecture and a work of artistic craftsmanship.
Foreground intellectual property
IP rights created during collaboration and research & development projects. Foreground IP can include IP rights which are developed wholly because of and during the project, and rights which are developed substantially as a result of the project.
Intellectual Property Assignment
An intellectual property assignment is the transfer of an intellectual property right to another so that the assignor is no longer the owner of that right. The assignor cannot therefore use the right unless the assignee grants a licence back to the assignor.
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