Latest Insights

Patent Box: Inventing a way to reduce Corporation Tax Most companies would like to invent a way to reduce their corporation tax liability.  The UK Patent Box scheme provides a way to do just that by offering a reduced corporation tax rate of 10% for profits arising from patented inventions.  This tax saving through innovation… Read more »

Court of Appeal confirms requirement for human inventor in ‘DABUS’ case   On 21 September 2021 the Court of Appeal handed down its decision in THALER v COMPTROLLER GENERAL concerning allowability of UK patents having an AI based machine known as DABUS (short for Device for the Autonomous Bootstrapping of Unified Sentience) listed as an inventor. A… Read more »

Exhausted? You’re not alone…! What next for parallel imports after Brexit? This article was first written by our experts Ian Gill and Suzanne Power for PTMG’s Law Lore & Practice Newsletter   Background 1 January 2021 marked the start of a new era for the United Kingdom and European Union. On that date, some four… Read more »

Post Brexit – the final countdown … Don’t forget the 30 September 2021 deadline for filing comparable UK trade mark or design applications based on any EU trade marks or designs that were pending at the end of the Brexit transition period.  Since Brexit took effect this year, those rights will no longer cover the… Read more »

The Nagoya Protocol and the UK – are you compliant? The Nagoya Protocol has been in force in the UK since October 2015 and obliges users of genetic resources and traditional knowledge associated with genetic resources to comply with due diligence requirements before its ‘utilisation’. There is also an obligation to make a due diligence… Read more »

UK government faces challenges over future exhaustion of IP rights regime Brexit created ‘one way door’ policy for parallel imports, say AA Thornton partners Ian Gill and Dan Byrne This article was first posted by The Global Legal Post  as event coverage for Ian and Dan’s presentation ‘Exhaustion of rights’ for the Anti-counterfeiting World Summit…. Read more »

Using IP to effectively combat online celebrity endorsement scams As reported in the BBC recently, the National Cyber Security Centre (“NCSC”) has released its Active Cyber Defence Report for 2020. In that report it has stated that ‘celebrity endorsement scams’ are a relatively new type of scam in relation to which it has started performing takedowns…. Read more »

Deadline approaching for the Government R&D Tax Credits Consultation – your input needed for potential changes to RDEC and SME R&D Relief Government R&D Tax Credits Consultation: The UK government intends to raise investment in research and development to 2.4% of UK GDP by 2027 and wants to ensure that one of the key incentives for… Read more »

Ian Gill reports on how miniscule trademark use may be enough to support a passing off claim and maintain a EU trademark registration. This article was written by Ian for the IPKat legal blog Don’t be fooled: decision O/050/21 is not just another unsuccessful appeal to the UK Appointed Person (approximately 85% of such appeals are unsuccessful). Underlying… Read more »

Retail and Trade Mark expert Suzanne Power provides an update on UK AFAs and the new procedure for recording IP rights with UK customs authorities, a simple and effective way to take counterfeit goods off the market In this article, we provide an update on filing a UK AFA and how this decision should be… Read more »