It is welcome news that the UK has finally secured a reasonably comprehensive Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) with the EU. Accordingly, as of now, EU laws and arrangements that prevailed during the post-Brexit transition period no longer apply. UK businesses have long been used to securing EU intellectual property (IP) rights which have provided […]
On 16 July, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ruled that the mechanism that allowed the transfer of personal data of European Union citizens to the United States was no longer legitimate under European data protection laws. The mechanism is known as the Privacy Shield. In 2016 it replaced the Safe Harbor […]
On Tuesday 5 May, the government made available the trial of the NHS contact tracing app (“test, track and trace”) to residents of the Isle of Wight as the first phase of a projected national roll-out by June. Making use of the app is voluntary. Users may download it to their smartphones to notify the […]
As with all significant events, novel viruses being no exception, people capitalise on ideas for products and services that could be relevant. For consumer goods, a commercially necessary first step is to launch trade mark applications in the expectation that they will result in registered and therefore more protectable marks. Coronavirus impact on IP and […]
Data privacy law has always tried to strike a balance between individual rights and overwhelming social needs. With the COVID-19 pandemic now sweeping the world, Governments are taking extreme measures to save lives by encouraging social distancing and tracking infected persons. People in democratic countries are simply not used to some of the measures being […]