NIPC Law

Lord Kitchin* Jane Lambert Supreme Court (Lords Hodge, Kitchin, Hamblen, Leggatt and Richards) Thaler v Comptroller General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks 2 March 2023 "DABUS" stands for "Device for Autonomous Bootstrapping of Unified Sentience". It was created by Dr Stephen L Thaler . who has trained it to invent  a food container  and  devices and enhanced devices and methods for attracting enhanced attention .  Dr Thaler has applied for patents for those inventions in several countries including the UK His applications have been rejected by the European, British and American and most of the world's other patent offices on the ground that an inventor must be a natural person.  The only country in which he has been successful is South Africa (see the South African Patent Journal July 2021 Vol 54 No 07 ). There is a list of Patents and Applications   for those inventions   on The Artificial Inventor Project website. In the United Kingdom, Dr T...

Tom Duke - UK Attaché in China Jane Lambert On 19 Sept 2017 I chaired two seminars on IP rights in China for businesses, lawyers and patent and trade mark attorneys in Yorkshire. One took place in Leeds in the studios of Northern Ballet and Phoenix Dance Theatre  and the other in the Barnsley Business and Innovation Centre . Both were attended by leaders in business, education and the arts including, in particular, Phoenix's artistic director,  Sharon Watson , who was about to visit China with a view to bringing her company to that country. The main speaker at those talks was Tom Duke who is our IP attaché to China and Hong Kong.  Tom is one of four officials who work with the Department for International Trade (DIT) and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) to provide support for UK businesses seeking advice on local IP matters.  The other three are Christabel Koh  in Singapore who covers South East Asia, Angelica Garcia in Brazi...