The Legal Services Act 2007, which followed the Clementi Review, had two main practical effects:

• first, it established regulators for lawyers and the Legal Ombudsman independent of professional bodies for lawyers; and
• secondly (not relevant in the present context), it permitted the creation of private practices consisting of different types of lawyer (“LDPs”) and also consisting of lawyers together with non-lawyers (“ABSs”).

The Federation’s members employ, “in-house”, the following classes of lawyer to do IP work: registered UK patent attorneys, registered UK trade mark attorneys, English solici­tors, and English barristers. Sometimes, members employ European patent attorneys lack­ing national registration; these are not lawyers under the Legal Services Act, but valuably their communications with their clients/employers are privileged on a par with registered UK patent attorneys (Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, Section 280).

In 2014, the Government sought views on proposed changes to the Registered Designs Act 1949. The proposal was that the legis­lation be amended to provide registered design owners with the option of marking a product with the address of a website which links the product with the relevant registered design numbers as an alternative way of providing notice of the rights. The Government response to this call for evidence was published in August 2015.

The response document provides a summary of what respondents said about the proposal to introduce the option of webmarking for registered design rights. This document provides a summary of the key points raised by respondents and the Government’s commentary on these issues.

The Federation has engaged with the European Patent Office (EPO) throughout 2015 to pro­vide input on matters relating to implementing and ancillary regulations to the European Patent Convention (EPC) and to procedures of the EPO. The Federation maintains ongoing working relationships with EPO representatives including meetings with the President and Directors throughout the year.

In March 2015 the President of the EPO submitted a Proposal for a structural reform of the EPO Boards of Appeal (BOA) (CA/16/15) prompted by decision R 19/12 of the Enlarged Board of Appeal. The President’s proposal is intended to increase the organisational and managerial autonomy of the BOA, the perception of their independence and also their efficiency. The proposal introduces a new President of the BOA who will not be a Vice President of the EPO and who will have organisational, managerial and budgetary responsibility for the BOA reporting to a new subsidiary committee of the Administrative Council (AC), the Board of Appeal Committee (BOAC). It is proposed that the BOAC will com­prise AC members, experienced judges, the President of the EPO and the President of the BOA. The BOAC will monitor efficiency and independence of the BOA while guiding on recruitment of board members. The President further proposed to relocate the BOA to pro­vide geographic separation from the EPO to improve the perception of independence.

In 2015, as in 2013 and 2014, the unitary patent and Unified Patent Court (UPC) dossier has been among the Federation’s highest priorities, following the long-awaited agreement between the European Parliament and Council in late 2012 which resulted in the unitary patent and language Regulations being adopted in December 2012, and signature of the UPC Agreement on 19 February 2013.

The dossier has continued to move forward during 2015, with new ratifications during the year bringing the total to eight. It now appears possible that the required number of rati­fica­tions (13 including the UK and Germany) will be achieved by mid-2016 such that the Prepar­atory Committee’s revised target date for commencement of the new system (January 2017) is potentially achievable – though spring or summer 2017 seems more likely.

The Indian Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) has con­sti­tuted an IPR Think Tank to draft a National Intellectual Property Policy and to advise DIPP on IPR (intel­lect­ual property rights) issues. The Indian Govern­ment has been con­sulting on the National Intellect­ual Property Policy, and the first official draft was released by DIPP on 25 December 2014.

In its response, policy paper 2/15, the IP Federation first observed that the Think Tank notes that an objective of the Draft IPR Policy should be to “guide and enable all creators and inventors to realize their potential for generating, protecting and utilizing IP which would contribute to wealth creation, employment opportunities and business develop­ment.” It also aims to “foster predictability, clarity and transparency in the entire IP regime in order to provide a secure and stable climate for stimulating inventions and creations, and augmenting research, trade, technology transfer and investment.”

Carol is a UK Chartered Patent Attorney; a European Patent Attor­ney; and also an Associate Member of the Institution of Chemi­cal Engineers. She has over 30 years of experience in patents, having joined the patent profession directly after gaining a degree in Envir­on­mental Chemical En­gin­eering from the University of Exeter. Carol has represented Shell on the Council of the IP Fed­er­a­tion since 2008, and in the past few years has also served as Chair of the IP Federation patent committee.

There are a number of patent harmonisation initiatives ongoing, some driven by the IP5 Of­fices and some through WIPO and the informal B+ subgroup. Most of these initiatives are con­cerned with procedural improvements aimed at making the patent prosecution process simpler to the benefit of the offices and users. However, since 2013 there has been a major push towards substantive patent law harmonisation driven by the chair of the Group B+, John Alty.

The Global Dossier (GD) project arose out of work initiated by the Trilateral Offices including that on the Common Application Format (CAF) and Common Citation Document (CCD), with the purpose of agreeing common procedures between the Offices. Both CAF and CCD have subsequently been taken over by the IP5 Heads.

In October 2014, the European Commission began a public consultation on patents and standards. The aim of this consultation was to gather information and views on inter­play between standardisation and intellectual property rights (IPR) such as patents. The purpose of the consultation was to allow stakeholders interested in stan­dardisa­tion involving patents to bring to the Commission’s attention their views on:

–how the current framework governing standardisation involving patents performs; and

–how it should evolve to ensure that standardisation remains efficient and adapted to the fast-changing economic and technological environment.

Following major developments during December 2015, we can now report that the EU Trade Secrets Directive has moved to a near-final stage, with the final legislation looking likely to be passed early in the New Year. Although much remained to be finalised as recently as late autumn, a sustained push by the out-going Luxembourg Presidency of the EU Council led to several “trilogue” meetings in the early winter 2015, with a “provisional agreement” being reached on 15 December. The text in question was then released for public consump­tion on 22 December, allowing us to assess the quality and likely impact of the Directive. We can also report on the effectiveness of the IP Federation’s efforts to engage with the legislative process, which appear to have had a positive impact. 

The policy papers on the website represent the views of the innovative and influen­tial com­panies which are members of the Federation. Members are con­sulted on their views and opinions and encouraged to debate and explore issues of practice and policy. Only after consensus is achieved are external bodies informed of the col­lective views of industry via the Federation.