In the wake of the major changes instituted by the EU creating export and stockpiling waivers during supplementary protection certificate (SPC) term, it was not surprising that Her Majesty's Government generated UK rules to implement this new legislation during the course of the year. In line with the UK’s Brexit amendments to SPC law, to retain basing term calculation on the first marketing authorisation (MA) to issue in the UK or EU/EEA, the EU states were not defined as third countries to which export is permitted under the waiver legislation. At the time of writing no national patent office seems to have received any notification under the waiver. It will be interesting to see if UK generic industry finds the waiver attractive once it comes fully into operation in 2022.

The Federation had its origin in a committee of industrial companies which from 1913 lobbied the UK government on its planned trade mark legislation. On 23 April 1920, a limited company was incorporated to continue this work, and with a broad remit indicated by its name “Trade Marks Patents and Designs Federation Limited”. Ever since, the Federation’s “Council”, chaired by a “President”, has met approximately monthly so as to allow prompt lobbying in relation to any IP matter that may arise. (The company name was changed by the omission of “Limited” in 1951, and to “IP Federation” in 2014.)

In September 2020, the Industry Trilateral (IT3) submitted a paper entitled “Policy and Elements for a Possible Substantive Patent Harmonization Package” to the secretariat of the B+ group of WIPO nations (which was established to promote and facilitate progress on substantive patent law harmonisation (SPLH)). This paper marks the culmination of over six years of work by the IT3 to achieve agreement on the scope of four key elements of SPLH and paves the road for next steps and initiatives to be taken by governmental representatives sharing the same desire for progress and adaptation of the patent system. The Industry Trilateral (IT3) was formed in 2003 as a basis for industry stake holders in the jurisdiction of the Trilateral Patent Offices (EPO, JPO, and USPTO) to jointly engage the Offices in a discussion of substantive and procedural issues involving intellectual property (IP). The IT3 includes the American Intellectual Property Law Association,  the Intellectual Property Owners Association (a US organisation), BusinessEurope, and the Japan Intellectual Property Association. IP Federation/TMPDF representatives have been part of the BusinessEurope delegation since the formation of the IT3.

The Strategic Advisory Board for Intellectual Property Policy (SABIP) was established in June 2008 and was dissolved two years later in July 2010. In its two years SABIP sponsored a num­ber of research projects, focussing to a major extent on the copyright field.