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Recent Articles

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  20.03.2023

  International

  UK An­nounces it will be­come a party to the Singa­pore Con­ven­tion on Me­di­ation

  It has been announced that the UK will become a party to the United Nations Convention on International Settlement Agreements Resulting from Mediation (the “Singapore Convention”), as an “important signal of [the UK’s] intentions to remain a world leader in this area and as a clear indication of the UK’s commitment to mediation”.The Singapore ConventionThe Singapore Convention was adopted by the UN in December 2018, opened for signatures in August 2019 and in force by September 2020. It currently has 55 signatories, 10 of whom have ratified. It creates a...

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  20.03.2023

  Europe

  Out with the old, in with the new? Con­sid­er­a­tions for pat­entees in opt­ing out of the Uni­fied Pat­ent Court

  So far in this series of blog posts, we began with an article that highlighted some of the key changes between the current European system of patent prosecution and enforcement and the new Unitary Patent and Unified Patent Court (UPC), set to become operational from 1 June 2023.  In part two, we considered the interesting procedural features of the UPC and how they might influence a patentee’s decision to opt in or out of the regime.In this part three, we discuss some of the practical and strategic considerations that patentees should weigh up when deciding whether to opt out of the...

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  20.03.2023

  United Kingdom

  Men­tal health in a cost-of-liv­ing crisis

  The Mental Health Foundation recently published a report saying that they expect the effects of the cost-of-living crisis on public mental health to be on a scale similar to the COVID-19 pandemic. Over a quarter of employees say that financial concerns affect their ability to do their job, according to research by the Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development (“CIPD”), and nearly a third say cost-of-living financial worries have negatively impacted their productivity. In addition, the Health and Safety Executive (“HSE”), report that stress and poor mental health...

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  20.03.2023

  United Kingdom

  The Su­preme Court has held that Ukraine can de­fend USD$3 bil­lion con­trac­tu­al claim on grounds of duress

  SummaryIn a highly anticipated judgment, the UK Supreme Court has unanimously dismissed the summary judgment application made by the Law Debenture Trust Corporation plc (the “Trustee”), acting on behalf of the Russian Federation (“Russia”), regarding the Trustee’s contractual claim against Ukraine concerning the non-payment by Ukraine of Eurobonds with a nominal value of USD$3 billion (the “Notes”). The case will now proceed to trial, although Ukraine must amend its defence to: (i) focus on duress of the person or of goods resulting from the alleged...

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  17.03.2023

  International

  In­ter­Di­git­al v Len­ovo – High Court sets glob­al FRAND li­cence terms

  The UK High Court has handed down its decision in the FRAND trial of the InterDigital v Lenovo litigation. It concerned InterDigital, an American company holding patents relevant to 3G, 4G and 5G technology and Lenovo, a Chinese ‘implementer’ of that technology. Lenovo has been ordered to pay InterDigital a royalty of $138.7 million (a rate of $0.175 per cellular unit) for its use of InterDigital’s 3G, 4G and 5G patents in its products. This is only the second decision of its kind in the UK (most such cases settle out of court).In short, the Court was asked to set global terms...

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  17.03.2023

  United Kingdom

  Changes to au­dio-visu­al tax re­liefs in the UK

  Following a period of consultation in which much of the industry has been actively engaged, the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced in this week’s Spring Budget the package of reforms that will apply to audio-visual tax reliefs in the UK.The reforms are applicable to all 5 audio-visual tax reliefs (film, high-end TV, children’s TV, animation and video games) and one of the changes at the heart of the reforms is the decision to move all the tax reliefs to expenditure credits. This will be implemented by way of two models:one for film and TV expenditure credits (the Audio-visual Expenditure...

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