IP and Tourism

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Jane Lambert

In 10 Opportunities, Towards a Local Industrial Strategy, the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Local Enterprise Partnership noted:

"Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly are one of the UK’s strongest tourism assets and provide significant opportunities for further export market development. As a leading domestic brand, we attract over four million UK staying trips every year. But the region’s huge potential to draw in holidaymakers from around the world has yet to be fully realised."

The meeting of the heads of government of the Group of Seven industrial nations at Carbis Bay between 11 and 13 June 2021 has provided a golden opportunity for the Cornish tourist industry to promote its services to that international market.

In their joint report Boosting Tourism Development through Intellectual Property, the World Intellectual Property Organization ("WIPO") and the UN World Tourism Organization ("UNWTO") have shown how intellectual property (IP) rights can be powerful tools to boost tourism development and competitiveness.  The study contains 18 case studies and considers how trade marks, geographical indications, copyrights and, in some cases, industrial designs and patents reinforce the competitive advantages of various popular tourist destinations.

Cornwall is famous for surfing, sailing and other water sports. Advances are often made in the design and construction of surfboards, boat hulls, navigation and communication technologies. Unlike many other tourist destinations, Cornwall has thriving aerospace and information technology industries. Businesses in those industries produce materials, electronic equipment and other inventions that can be used in the leisure industries and vice versa.  Patents are therefore more important to the Cornish tourist and leisure industries than they were to the regions in any of the case studies discussed by the WIPO and UNWTO.

Anyone seeking advice on patents for inventions will find patent attorneys in Redruth and Truro.  They may be located through the "Find A Patent Attorney" facility on the Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys' website.  The nearest Business and IP Centres are in Exeter and Plymouth. Several law firms in Cornwall claims expertise in IP and there are rather more in Plymouth, Exeter and Bristol.  Bristol is a Business and Property Court centre with judges who hear IP cases. There does not appear to be a Cornish inventors club according to the Wessex Round Table of Inventors  That website contains a useful article by Graham Rawlinson on Starting an Inventors' Club.

Anyone wishing to discuss this article can call me on 020 7404 5252 during office hours or send me a message on my contact form.

The G7 Communique and IP

Author Andy F Licence CC BY-SA 3.0 Source Wikimedia Commons
 

Jane Lambert

Although the meeting of the heads of government of the Group of Seven ("G7") industrial nations at Carbis Bay may be remembered for the wrong reasons such as the Foreign Secretary's outburst after the French President gently tried to point out that the customs arrangements that apply to Northern Ireland are different from those in Great Britain which is not the case in France it has drawn the world's press and broadcasters to Cornwall.  That ought to benefit the duchy's tourist industry once the public health emergency is over.

It appears that a lot of work was done in preparation for the meeting and agreement was recorded on a wide range of issues in the Carbis Bay G7 Summit Communiqué.  The document covers the following topics:

• Health (paras 6 to 18)
• Economic Recovery and Jobs (paras 19 to 26)
• Free and Fair Trade (paras 27 to 30)
• Future Frontiers (paras 31 to 36)
• Climate and Environment (paras 37 to 43)
• Gender Equality (paras 44 to 47)
• Global Responsibility and International Action (paras 48 to 69).

The leaders said that they had revitalized their G7 partnership in Cornwall. They looked forward to working with others and each other at the G20 Summit, COP26, and CBD15 and the UN General Assembly.

In view of the announcement by the US Trade Representative of the US government's intention to enter text-based negotiations on the possible relaxation of intellectual property protection for COVID-19 vaccines on 5 May 2021 which I mentioned in The Patent Waiver Debate in NIPC Law on 8 May 2021, it seemed likely that there would be a statement on the issue in the communiqué.  

The issue was considered in para 12.  The heads of government committed "to an end-to-end approach to boost supply of COVID-19 tools, including vaccines, raw materials, tests, therapeutics, and personal protective equipment (PPE), through more production in more places to sustain a global supply network for this pandemic and the next" based on the principles of open trade and transparency, including through terminating unnecessary trade-restrictive measures and supporting open, diversified, secure and resilient supply chains. It will be backed up by a practical and pragmatic approach to breaking down bottlenecks that are holding back the efficient use of current production capacity, as well as promoting partnerships to increase capacity further.

Rather than amendingTRIPS and national patent laws. the leaders seemed to prefer voluntary licensing and technical transfer:

"Emphasising the need for equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines, we will support manufacturing in low income countries and, noting the importance of intellectual property in this regard, we will engage constructively with discussions at the WTO on the role of intellectual property, including by working consistently within the TRIPS agreement and the 2001 Doha Declaration on the TRIPS agreement and Public Health. We note the positive impact that voluntary licensing and technology transfer on mutually agreed terms have already made to increasing global supply. We note the positive impact that voluntary licensing and technology transfer on mutually agreed terms have already made to increasing global supply. We will explore all options to ensure affordable and accessible COVID-19 tools for the poorest countries, including non-profit production, tiered and transparent pricing, and sharing by manufacturers of a proportion of production with COVAX, noting the previous precedent of the 10 per cent target in relation to influenza."

In other areas such as free trade, the leaders appeared to support a strengthening of IP protection.  For example, in the context of reforming the World Trade Organization at para 30, they called for modernization of the global trade rulebook so that it,,,,, strengthens rules to protect against unfair practices, such as forced technology transfer" and "intellectual property theft......"

Commjuniqués from heads of government meetings are not biding but they are statements of intent. Anyone wishing to discuss this article or any of the topics mentioned in it may call me on +44 (0)20 7404 5252 during office hours or send me a message through my contact form.

The Role of Intellectual Property in Space Commerce

Buss Aldrin on the Moon in 1969   Author NASA  Reproduced courtesy of the US Government

Jane Lambert

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the moon landing, the United States Patent and Trademark Office ("USPTO") will hold an event at its offices in Alexandria, Virginia on 23 July 2019 between 14:00 and 16:30 local time entitled Apollo 50: The role of intellectual property in space commerce.  Speakers will include Mr Jim Bridenstine who is the administrator or head of the US space agency (the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)) and Mr Andrei Iancu who is the director of the USPTO.  According to the Eventbrite card, the event will focus on "space innovation, technology transfer from the Apollo missions, and an overview of the current administration’s policy on space exploration, commerce, and industry."  If I were in the USA next week I would have applied to attend that event and I strongly advise any readers who find themselves in the vicinity of the USPTO to do so.

American industry benefited greatly from the Apollo Programme in many ways.  One example is Black & Decker's handheld vacuum cleaner which is featured on the USPTO's website (see Laura Larrimore's article Moondust and Marketing Magic). That was the result of applying technology to develop cordless power tools that could be used safely by astronauts for everyday tasks in the home.  There are of course many other products that resulted from space exploration from quartz-powered wristwatches to building insulation though apparently not non-stick or Teflon frying pans as polytetrafluoroethylene was discovered in 1938.

Although some British businesses have participated in the US space programme as suppliers or subcontractors, most of the work was done by the US government through various departments and agencies or by American companies.  In the 1960s the only countries that could launch things and people into space were the USA and the Soviet Union.  There are now many other countries with space exploration programmes including the UK (see Wikipedia's List of Government Space Agencies).  Increasingly, space exploration is being undertaken by private companies (see Jason Perlow To the Moon: 50 years after Apollo 11, is SpaceX the new NASA? 17 July 2019 ZDNet).

As a result of those developments, there are now many more opportunities for British businesses (see London Economics Size & Health of the UK Space Industry 2018 A Report to the UK Space Agency January 2019).  Many of those opportunities will arise in Cornwall, particularly if Newquay airport becomes a spaceport for horizontal space launches (see Cornwall and Isles of Scilly press release Cornwall makes case for space to Westminster 20 Nov 2018).  A cluster of businesses to support the spaceport and the earth station at Goonhilly is already gathering.

That brings me to the title of this article.  British companies need to protect their investment in research and development just as much as American ones and we really should have a high-level conference on the role of IP here.  Unless and until we do, here are some pointers:

• Unless and until they are ready to apply for a patent, they should take great care to keep sensitive documents under lock and key when not in use and to ensure that all staff, collaborators, suppliers and others do the same.
• Any sensitive information should be disclosed in confidence with the terms of the disclosure set out in writing.
• Monitor any disclosures and require the return of any documents and copies once the purpose of the disclosure has been met.
• For suitable inventions, apply for patents not just in the UK but in all important markets and in the countries of your main competitors.
• Never forget alternatives to patenting such as copyrights for software, database right, unregistered design right and trade marks for brands.

Should anyone wish to discuss this article or any of its contents, call me on +44 (0)20 7404 55252 during office hours or send me a message through my contact form.

Enforcing Cornish Intellectual Property Rights

Greenburrow Pumping Engine of Trevithick's Mine

Author Rod Allday
Licence Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0

Source Wikipedia

Jane Lambert

In 1797 the famous Cornish mining engineer, Richard Trevithick, was sued for patent infringement by the engineering firm Boulton & Watt. I have tried to find a report or other account of the case.  All I have been able to discover is that an injunction was granted and notice of the order was posted on one of Trevithick's buildings but it does not seem to have been served on Trevithick himself allegedly because the process servers feared they might be thrown down a mine shaft were they to approach him.

Had Trevithinck been sued today the claim would have proceeded in the Patents Court or Intellectual Property Enterprise Court ("IPEC") because CPR 63.2 (2) allocates to those courts actions relating to patents, registered or registered Community designs, semiconductor topographies or plant varieties.  Until 1 Oct 2017 those actions would have been issued out of the Rolls Building in London because that is where those courts are based.  However, paragraph 2.3 (2) of the Practice Direction - Business and Property Courts requires them to be issued out of the Bristol District Registry if they have significant links with Cornwall or some other part of the Western Circuit.   That is because the Bristol District Registry is the only Business and Property Court ("B&PC") district registry on the Western Circuit.

Paragraph 2.3 (3) of the Practice Direction states that a link to a particular circuit is established where:

"(a) one or more of the parties has its address or registered office in the circuit in question (with extra weight given to the address of any non-represented parties);
(b) at least one of the witnesses expected to give oral evidence at trial or other hearing is located in the circuit;
(c) the dispute occurred in a location within the circuit;
(d) the dispute concerns land, goods or other assets located in the circuit; or
(e) the parties’ legal representatives are based in the circuit."

Paragraph 2.3 (4) adds that  a claim which raises significant questions of fact or law in common with another claim already proceeding before a B&PC District Registry may be regarded as having significant links with that  circuit.

All other IP cases with such links to the Western Circuit should be issued out of Bristol if they have significant links with Cornwall or elsewhere on the Western Circuit whether in the High Court, County Court or IPEC. That is because the Bristol District Registry is also the only Chancery district registry on the Western Circuit.  Accordingly, Bristol is the only County Court hearing centre on the Western Circuit with a Chancery district registry attached.

If the case has significant links with another circuit as may have been the case in the claim brought against Trevithick as Boulton and Watt were based in Birmingham, the claim should be brought in another B&PC District Registry.  Alternatively, it can be issued out of the Rolls Building in London.

Paragraph 2.5 (3) of PD-Business and Property Courts warns that:

"A claim in the Intellectual Property List, which includes the Patents Court and the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court (“IPEC”) (and includes the IPEC small claims track to which rule 63.27 applies), may be issued in an appropriate BPCs District Registry. However the case management and/or trial of a claim in the Patents Court or the IPEC in the BPCs District Registry in question will be dependent on an appropriate judge being made available in the district registry in question."

However, both the Patents Court and IPEC guides have stated for many years that assigned and enterprise judges will sit outside London for the purpose of saving time or costs (see paragraph 4 of the Patents Court Guide and paragraph 1.5 of The Intellectual Property Enterprise Court Guide).

Anyone wishing to discuss this article should call me on 020 7404 5252 during office hours or send me a message through my contact form.