ITMA
aims to speed up the court process and make it cheaper and easier, particularly for small and medium-sized businesses, to protect their IP rights. It provides copyright, trade mark and unregistered design holders with the option of pursuing basic IP disputes through an informal hearing, without legal representation.
ITMA hopes that the PCC will hear more trademark and design cases so that they do not either have to go through the more expensive high court or be dropped altogether. The PCC is perhaps overlooked by IP owners simply because of its name. ITMA supports the proposal to have the PCC’s name changed to the IP County Court.
Following the consultation by IPReg on litigation regulations, a new qualifications regime came into effect on January 1, 2013. Now, registered patent and trademark attorneys have the option of acquiring and exercising broader rights to conduct litigation and to be heard before the PCC, the High Court and, for some consequent
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appeals, before the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court.
Te new regime has harmonised litigation rights by applying the same rights to all IP attorneys. ITMA welcomes the new regime and has put in place the necessary continuous professional development measures to ensure that trademark attorneys maintain their skills and update their knowledge regularly.
Te new year started with another challenge for the IP professions: the UK now has a (another) new government minister for IP, Lord Younger of Leckie. An ITMA press release said: “ITMA will continue to invest time and energy in offering the UK’s IP minister the benefit of our knowledge and experience in the trademark and design sector, which is increasingly recognised as an important area of the economy.”
Catherine Wolfe is president of ITMA. She can be contacted at:
Wolfe.ITMA@
Boult.com
World Intellectual Property Review e-Digest 2013 27
Catherine Wolfe is a registered trademark attorney and has been a partner at Boult Wade Tennant since 2009. She has filed trademark applications in almost every country with a trademark register and has represented numerous clients from private individuals to major corporations. A University of Cambridge graduate, Wolfe is proficient in Mandarin Chinese and has a particular interest in the adoption of Chinese character marks.
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