Welcome to the Year of the Dragon

Last night I was one of the guests of QualitySolicitors Jackson & Canter on their table at the Liverpool Chinese New Year VIP Dinner in the Adelphi Hotel. The event was organized by the Liverpool Chinese Business Network which I featured in my post "Let's First Become Friends: Then Do Business" on 13 Sept 2011. The dinner was one of a series of events to mark the start of the Spring Festival or Chinese New Year in Liverpool.  Others included "The Taste of China" street market, a dragon, lion and unicorn street dance and special exhibitions and shows at the spectacular new Museum of Liverpool.

This is the "Year of the Dragon" which is associated with power, strength, vitality and good luck. The Chinese Consul-General to Manchester referred to these characteristics yesterday in his speech to the dinner pointing out that China's continuing rapid economic growth offered hope.   It offers massive opportunities for businesses in Liverpool, the United Kingdom and indeed the rest of the world.  A point that I made though rather less authoritatively in my post to the Inventors Club blog "Happy New Year - this could be the year the recovery starts" on 1 Jan 2012,

There are certainly some hopeful signs in Liverpool. The city will host the Global Enterprise Congress between the 9 and 16 March 2012, the first time has ever been held in Europe. Speakers include big names such as Richard Bransom, Terry Leahy, Martha Lane-Fox and Michael Heseltine who famously championed the city after the Toxteth riots when at least some of his  cabinet colleagues were inclined to abandon it to "managed decline" ("Thatcher was urged to let Liverpool fall into decline" 30 Dec 2011 Independent).

Another hopeful sign - though on a much smaller scale - is that Liverpool Inventors Club is likely to start up again thanks to QualitySolicitors Jackson & Canter. The Club used to meet regularly every month in the Hornby Room of Liverpool Central Library but its meetings had to be suspended with the restoration of the library. Yesterday, Michael Sandys, head of IP at QualitySolicitors Jackson & Canter, and I agreed to work together to find a speaker and venue for the first meeting on 27 Feb 2012 at 18:00.


With all the good things that are happening in Liverpool right now one name crops up regularly. That of Di Burbidge. She was a founder member of the Inventors Club. She is one of the prime movers of the Liverpool Chinese Business Network. And she is playing an important role in events around the Global Enterprise Congress.   I first met her when she was commercial development manager at Liverpool John Moores University and she now practises on her own account as a Business Development Consultant. If you want to know about business opportunities in Liverpool you could do worse than drop her a line at diburbidge@live.co.uk.

Ideas North West: Charles Lucas

Last year Charles Lucas and Tom Bathgate of Going for Grants spoke to the Leeds and Sheffield Inventors Groups.

Their talk were very well received and I blogged about them in The Inventors Club blog on 22 Nov 2011.

They are now speaking to Ideas North West at The Globe Accrington on Tuesday 19 Jan 2012 at 18:00 for 18:30.   


Full details are in my post "Ideas North West:: Going for Grants."

Yes, but just suppose.

One of the trickiest clauses to draft in a commercial contract or terms and conditions is the dispute resolution provision. That is because no party to a commercial transaction wants to think of the possibility of ever falling out with his customer, supplier or collaborator. Yet fall out they often do and unless they have provided otherwise they will find themselves in court where their dispute is in a queue and they find themselves spending money as though it's going out of style.

There is an alternative and that is to refer the dispute to some form of dispute resolution ("ADR").  I have set out the options in my article "Intellectual Property Dispute Resolution in the UK" 2 Nov 2011 J D Supra.   Although a dispute can be referred to ADR at any stage - and there is a duty under the Practice Direction: Pre-Action Conduct to consider ADR which I discuss in my leaflet "IP Dispute Resolution in England and Wales: why sending a US style 'Cease and Desist Letter' or old style 'Letter before Action' may not be a good idea" 13 Jan 2012 J D Supra - it is considerably easier if there is already a dispute resolution provision in place.

These clauses can be very simple.    A typical mediation clause would be as follows:

"Any dispute or difference between the parties will be referred to mediation in accordance with the NIPC Mediation Rules by a mediator agreed by the parties or, in default of agreement within 14 days appointed by the Managing Director of NIPC Ltd."

Often these are combined with an arbitration clause:

"(1) Any dispute or difference between the parties shall be referred to arbitration before a single arbitrator agreed by the parties or, in the absence of agreement within 14 days of the reference, appointed by the managing director of NIPC Ltd.
(2) The seat of the arbitration will be England and Wales,
(3) The NIPC Arbitration Rules will apply."

Click the following links for the NIPC Mediation Rules and fees and the NIPC Arbitration Rules and Fees.   NIPC Arbitration has recently been selected by three large US companies to operate their "safe harbor" dispute resolution scheme (see "NIPC Arbitration's 'Safe Harbor' Dispute Resolution Service" 2 Jan 2012),

There are now a large number of other mediation service providers in the United Kingdom. Those specializing in intellectual property are listed helpfully in a booklet published by the Intellectual Property Office. As counsel I have found those offered by the IPO (see "Practice: Mediation in the IPO", 2 Oct 2009) and the World Intellectual Property Office to be particularly effective. There are rather fewer specialist arbitration services. Judge Ford gathered a panel of arbitrators (of which I was one) for the Patents County Court in the mid 90s but apart from us there is only the WIPO.

Should anyone have a dispute that they wish to refer to mediation they should complete our mediation enquiry form. If they have a dispute they would like to send to arbitration they should complete our arbitration form.  If you want to discuss either service you can call me on 0161 850 0080 or use my contact form. You can also contact me through Facebook, Linkedin, twitter or Xing.

From Manchester to Manama

Did you know that I keep a blog called NIPC Gulf on intellectual property in the Gulf Co-operation Council ("GCC") states? In the last year year I have posted articles on GCC Patents, the intellectual property laws of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Oman, data protection in the Dubai International and Qatar Financial Centres, the new domain name dispute resolution policy for the United Arab Emirates ("UAE") and, of course, lots of news on the DIFC (Dubai International Financial Centre) and QFC (Qatar Financial Centre) courts.


Why do I focus on that region? Because the Gulf is one of the fastest growing regions of the world providing a vast and rapidly expanding market for businesses in North West England. As I said in my Inventors Club blog a few days ago, I believe the recovery will start in 2012 because the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) and CIVETS (Colombia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Turkey and South Africa) and other emerging economies are growing so rapidly internally that they should lift the world from recession. The Gulf quite literally fuels that growth and, of course, the GCC states are also important emerging economises in their own right. Most of them are diversifying from hydrocarbon to knowledge based economies.


A knowledge based economy requires intellectual property laws that those who wish to do business with the region can understand and rely on. That's where I come in. Dubai and Qatar have established English speaking courts presided over by eminent judges from Commonwealth jurisdictions that apply common law rules in the Dubai International and Qatar Financial Centres (see "The DIFC Court" 7 Jan 2011 and "Qatar Financial Centre" 3 April 2011). Members of the English bar provide much of the advocacy for those courts. We also advise on local law and draft contracts and other legal instruments. The ruler of Dubai has recently extended the DIFC court's jurisdiction to cover any business dispute from any part of the world (See "DIFC Courts spread their Wings" 6 Dec 2011). 


Should anyone wish to discuss this matter further he or she should not hesitate to contact me on +44 161 850 0080 or complete my on-line contact form.

Freerange: Creative Industries in Carlisle

Though the North West is a massive region that connects Wales with Scotland this blog tends to focus on events in Liverpool and Manchester. Today I shall redress the balance a little by writing about the Freerange Workspace in Carlisle.

Freerange is the trading name of Freerange Artists Ltd. of Carlyle Gate in the city of Carlisle. Freerange offers its premises as a resource centre for local businesses and organizations. Its services include hot desking, meeting rooms and networking. Facilities include a full reprographic suite and a range of research and administrative services. I have been invited to give a course on intellectual property and I look forward to working with them.

Creative and cultural industries are only one of many industries in Carlisle. Food and agriculture are important in Cumbria. The Cumberland sausage has recently achieved protected geographical indication status (see DEFRA press release of 18 March 2011). This and other industries are co-ordinated by a particularly active local enterprise partnership.

Carlisle also has two of the campuses of the recently established University of Cumbria others being at Ambleside, Barrow, Penrith, Workington and London. Yes - this is not a misprint, Bow in East London. The University's local campuses provide a full range of research, training and other services to local businesses.

Cracking Nuts - Copyright in Choreography

This short article gives me an excuse to indulge one of my passions in life: the Ballet.

Northern Ballet are performing "The Nutcracker" at the Opera House until Saturday. I caught the company in Bradford earlier this month and it was a delight. Not to be missed even if you are joining me at the Daresbury Business Breakfast at 08:30 tomorrow. If you miss them in Manchester the company is worth following to its next destination.

My other passion, of course, is intellectual property and the tie that brings them together is the decision of the Court of Appeal in Massine v De Basil [1936 - 1945] MCC 233. Sadly the decision is not yet on line but my old friend, client and solicitor, David Swarbrick of Brighouse, has written a note on the case that is not half bad.

Essentially the choreographer, Leonide Massine - who must have been very dishy in his day judging by this drawing of the great Russian artist Leon Bakst - complained of the inclusion by the impresario Colonel Wassilly de Basil of one of his works in the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo's repertoire without his consent.

The case is remembered primarily as authority for the proposition that a party who commissions a copyright work can acquire equitable title to the copyright even if the legal title remains with the author. The point has come up in two of my cases, IBCOS Computers Ltd. v Barclays Mercantile Highland Finance Ltd, and Others [1994] FSR 265 and Lakeview Computers PLc. v Steadman [1999] All ER (D) 1327. But the most remarkable aspect of the case is that a ballet was protectable at all under the Copyright Act 1911.

S.1 (1) of the Act provided that copyright should subsist in every original dramatic work that met the subsequent conditions. The definition of a "dramatic work" in s.35 (1) included a "choreographic work" provided that it was "fixed in writing or otherwise". Nowadays dance is recorded in the Benesh system of notation but that was developed several years after the appeal. The Court of Appeal seems to have regarded the ballet as a composition of costume, music, scenery and story as well as dance of which the choreography was only part:

"The choreography was but one part of a composite whole. The defendant had paid the money under the agreement for the supplying to his ballet of a part which was necessary for its completeness, and unless he was entitled to the copyright in that part of the ballet he would not be getting that benefit from the contract which must have been the intention of the parties."

Of course, brilliant though the choreography of an Ashton, Macmillan or indeed a Nixon may be, it is its interpretation by the principals that delights the public. The expressiveness of Sibley, the athleticism of Dowell, the grace of Seymour, the humour of Sleep, the power of Nureyev and the genius of Fonteyn. Since 1989 dancers have enjoyed economic and more recently moral rights in their performances but at the time of Massine the notion of protecting perfromers' rights was very new. The Dramatic and Musical Performers' Protection Act 1928 provided criminal sanctions for unauthorized filming or sound recording but rights of action came along very much later.

FabLab Manchester: Introduction to Intellectual Property

I have already mentioned FabLab Manchester in my articles on Eddie Kirby's presentation to Daresbury on 16 July 2011 and my visit to the Manchester FabLab on 5 Aug 2011.

On 12 Oct 2011 I chaired a seminar on Intellectual Property and Licensing at FabLab Manchester. We had a good turnout with about 40 attendees which included artists, designers, inventors and entrepreneurs. Some had travelled a considerable distance to attend the event. One from as far away as Inverness.

I started the session with an Introduction to Intellectual Property. I was followed by patent agent Tom Hutchinson on "Practical Intellectual Property". Tom carried out research into additive manufacturing technologies before he qualified as a patent agent so he was particularly well suited to speak to the FabLab community. The last speaker was Michael Sandys, a partner of QualitySolicitors Jackson & Canter. Michael spoke on licensing and enforcement. Intriguingly, his talk was entitled "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly regarding Licensing and Enforcement."

On the other side of the Pennines the Leeds and Sheffield inventors' clubs were lucky enough to hear from a FabLab Manchester user. Jane Keats, a young New Zealand designer, focused on FabLabs in her presentation "Factories of the Future". I reported her talk in my NIPC Inventors Club blog. Another report of Jane's talk appears in the Leeds Inventors Group blog.

We in IP North West are very enthusiastic about FabLab Manchester and the FabLab movement in general and wish to help them all we can. We shall be doing that in a number of ways through clinics, publications and presentations. If anybody has any comment about FabLab, additive manufacturing or its technologies, do get in touch with me through my contact form, Facebook, Linkedin, Xing or twitter or call me on 0161 850 0080.