Whereas 2022 was a year of revival and settling down, 2023 was more a year of just getting down to it. The legacy of remote working brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic meant that meetings of the IP Federation Trade Mark Committee were still being held remotely for most of the year. The committee is now back in the saddle again, having finally come together in November 2023 in person. With continuing opportunities and challenges, both at home and abroad, the opportunity to share views and discuss trade mark issues with fellow brand owners facing similar questions and decisions is invaluable. This chance to meet for open discussion and share practical tips is one of several benefits that members of the IP Federation enjoy. A further highlight of the latest in-person Trade Mark Committee meeting was that we welcomed CIMTA’s CEO, Keven Bader, to our meeting. Keven provided an update on CITMA’s activity on rights of representation and address for service.

Danny Keenan, President Danny is a European patent attorney with 20 years of practical experi­ence with managing patents, designs, trade secrets and technology-related agree­ments. Danny joined Unilever in the UK after completing a DPhil in physical chemistry and worked for seven years as a research scientist and technical project leader before moving to the IP department. Danny has worked on IP across all of Unilever’s business groups, including personal care, nutrition and ice cream, and helped build the Unilever patent group in China.

Covid-19 changed many things, not all of them for the worse. Think of the mass enforced experiment of working from home which to our collective relief was actually quite alright and has proven durable and popular after the pandemic is behind us. Stopping travel was another change. Personal travel has come back but business travel less so. I finally managed to get to Japan to visit my company HQ in October ’22 after a three-year gap. There were few business travellers in my Tokyo hotel and my companions at breakfast were mainly intrepid tourists from France and the USA. There were constant reminders that Covid was still a real threat, from the plastic gloves we were obliged to don before handling breakfast items to the scary public announcements in stations to observe Covid precautions. And wearing a mask all day in HQ made my ears sore!

It’s rarely a route to fame or fortune to say you’re a member of any committee, let alone a specialist one in the arcane field of intellectual property. So why do experts from innovative industry give up time from their very busy day jobs to participate in the IP Federation Patent Committee? Let’s see. Under the able chairing of Rob Knight (supported in the background by his gently snoozing dog), the Patent Committee meets by videoconference three times a year. Each meeting attracts about fifteen experts who really know how the patent system works, and could work better, in practice. Collectively, they cover a wide range of technologies and so are able to take a cross-sectoral view. But what’s the Patent Committee for? Well, it’s main purpose is to take a more detailed look at important patent issues than the Council has time for. It doesn’t have a decision-making role – that’s for Council – but it is well qualified to undertake analysis and give advice. A key benefit for its members comes from knowledge-sharing. It’s amazing how much people learn from one another in the course of the Committee’s discussions.

IP Federation accounts 31 December 2022: Annual Report and Unaudited Financial Statements for the year ended 31 December 2022

ISSN 2755-5755 In the IP Federation we have long advocated taking an evidence-based approach to the debates before us. Investments in R&D, supported by a balanced and predictable IP framework, have delivered amazing results across a variety of sectors: life-changing medicines; computers and processors; mobile communications; and green technologies. This side of the story deserves to be told too. We should be proud to say, ‘IP is like air’. – Matthew Hitching, President

Five years since the doctrine of equivalents was introduced by the Supreme Court decision in Actavis v Eli Lilly [2017] UKSC 48, there are still questions as to its scope (ironically) in the UK. We dive into three decisions handed down in 2022 to see how the doctrine has progressed. Teva v Novartis [2022] EWHC 2847 (Pat). In this decision His Honour Judge Hacon (sitting in the High Court) addressed a question that had not been considered by the Supreme Court in Actavis: how should numerical ranges be approached in the context of infringement by equivalence?

A chance to share a virtual coffee with Belinda and Suzanne as they reflect on being an in‑house IP attorney

Suzanne: Well, Belinda, we first met when Roger [Burt] introduced us, as he thought we might get along? At that point though, you had been in the biz for a few years, and I had just started out, having just moved from private practice to in-house at Arm. What can you remember of your first few years in-house? Belinda: Yeah, he did, and good question. When I made the shift from private practice to working in-house at IBM (many years ago now), I thought that the roles would be rather similar – a steady diet of drafting, patent filings, amendments, oral proceedings, and more amendments – just without the step of having to wait for client instructions, or, I hoped, without having to keep track of and bill a client for every 6 minutes (0.1 hr) of my working day! Actually, it was not too dissimilar at the beginning, though luckily the timekeeping/invoicing did vanish. I started with ‘easy stuff’ with which I was familiar – mainly amendment work, and at least one draft per month, but over the last almost 20 years it has changed in almost every aspect (although I still dabble occasionally with the odd amendment!). The role in fact is constantly changing as the company does, and I still get queries popping up on topics which I have never considered before – this week’s example being copyright levies in Spain and the process of obtaining an exemption for laptops used only for business use! But it was not until I joined IP Federation Council in 2011 and listened to the other representatives there that I realised what a broad and varied job that of an in-house patent attorney truly is!

Introduction

It’s been a hugely busy year for the IP Federation and its Trade Working Group tracking and trying to influence the UK Government’s efforts to secure new trade deals, and ensure that their IP provisions are, as far as possible, supportive of the needs of innovative industry. Since my report on international trade and IP in last year’s IP Federation Review 2021, I would highlight the following key developments. The IP Federation, through its Trade Working Group, continues to engage actively with, amongst others, the UK Government-DIT and IPO in particular, the CBI and overseas governments/business stakeholders in the sphere of international trade and IP. It is an unprecedented and intensely busy time, with different complex trade negotiations being undertaken at pace by the UK with different partners across the world. The IP Federation’s sustained strong engagement and considered expert inputs in this area in support of the UK Government’s objectives are, we believe, beginning to produce positive results at a crunch time. The strong trusted relationship we have built up with the Government – DIT, IPO is a great asset.

2022 was a year of revival and settling down. As we emerged from remote working brought about by the Covid pandemic, the new realities of work away from the office and the resulting benefits and challenges became clearer. The end of 2022 rear-view mirror was useful. The almost immediate transition to remote working and complete cessation of travel from February 2020 throughout 2021 proved that our IP and broader service teams were nimble. In-house and external legal teams pivoted almost seamlessly to an online digital world. Teleconferencing and video calls catapulted previously camera-shy individuals to new ways of working and interaction. Trade mark offices and some courts turbocharged their digitalisation and remote functionalities. Were it not for the Covid pandemic surely these developments would have taken longer. Trade mark processes and litigation continued largely electronically and successfully.