Articles tagged as Intellectual Property Law
Latest Law Papers tagged as Intellectual Property Law
Including law essays, dissertations, problem questions, case summaries, and law lectures, suitable for law students working towards their LLB / LLM qualifications or those studying for the new SQE.
Hadley v Kemp [1999] EMLR 589
Case Summaries
Spandau Ballet’s publishing-income dispute: no binding sharing agreement was proved, and joint authorship largely failed, with an exception for Glow. ...
Last modified: 5th Nov 2026
Stevenson Jordan & Harrison Ltd v Macdonald & Evans [1952] 1 TLR 101
Case Summaries
The Court of Appeal distinguished an author’s lecture material from work created in the course of employment when deciding ownership of copyright in a book. ...
Last modified: 4th Nov 2026
Emotional Perception AI Limited v Comptroller General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks [2026] UKSC 3
Case Summaries
Emotional Perception sought to patent an artificial neural network system recommending media files by emotional similarity. The Supreme Court held that an ANN is a computer program, but abandoned the Aerotel test in favour of the EPO's G1/19 'any hardware' approach. The claims were therefore not excluded, and the application returns to the Hearing Officer. […] ...
Last modified: 4th Nov 2026
Dairy UK Ltd v Oatly AB [2026] UKSC 4
Case Summaries
Oatly registered POST MILK GENERATION as a trade mark for oat-based foods and drinks. The Supreme Court held it invalid because 'designation' in the 2013 Regulation covers any use of 'milk' for non-dairy products, not merely naming them, and the characteristic-quality exception did not apply. Background Oatly AB, a Swedish manufacturer of oat-based alternatives to […] ...
Last modified: 4th Nov 2026
Tesla, Inc and another v InterDigital Patent Holdings, Inc and others; Tesla, Inc and others v InterDigital Patent Holdings, Inc and another No 2 [2026] UKSC 27
Case Summaries
Tesla wants to sell 5G-enabled vehicles in the United Kingdom and says the royalty for a licence of the necessary patents through Avanci’s 5G platform is too high. The Supreme Court held that Tesla has a real prospect of obtaining declarations about a fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory licence of InterDigital’s UK patents on that platform, […] ...
Last modified: 4th Nov 2026
SkyKick UK Ltd and another v Sky Ltd and others [2024] UKSC 36
Case Summaries
Sky relied on the breadth of its SKY registrations to challenge two services offered by SkyKick. That breadth raised a prior question: had Sky sought protection for goods and services it never genuinely intended to supply? The Supreme Court restored the trial judge’s findings of partial invalidity for bad faith and distinguished the two services […] ...
Last modified: 4th Nov 2026
Thaler v Comptroller-General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks [2023] UKSC 49
Case Summaries
Stephen Thaler named an AI machine, DABUS, as the inventor on two patent applications. He said he was entitled to the patents because he owned DABUS. Those were two separate propositions under the Patents Act 1977. The first concerned who could be an inventor. The second concerned how an applicant who was not the inventor […] ...
Last modified: 4th Nov 2026
Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc v Kymab Ltd [2020] UKSC 27
Case Summaries
The Supreme Court held that Regeneron could not patent a whole range of genetically engineered mice when its patents taught a skilled person how to make only some of them. The mice were intended as platforms for developing antibodies for human treatment. For a product claim, the disclosure must enable substantially all the products within […] ...
Last modified: 4th Nov 2026
Unwired Planet International Ltd and another v Huawei Technologies (UK) Co Ltd and another [2020] UKSC 37
Case Summaries
The Supreme Court held that an English court may restrain infringement of a valid UK patent which is essential to a telecommunications standard unless the implementer takes a worldwide licence of the owner’s portfolio on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms, and may settle the disputed terms of that licence. Huawei’s and ZTE’s appeals, in claims […] ...
Last modified: 4th Nov 2026
Actavis Group PTC EHF and others v ICOS Corporation and another [2019] UKSC 15
Case Summaries
The Supreme Court dismissed an appeal by the owner and exclusive licensee of a patent for a 1 to 5 mg dose of tadalafil, the active ingredient in Cialis, and held that the patent lacked an inventive step. An earlier patent had already disclosed tadalafil as a treatment for erectile dysfunction, and routine dose-ranging trials […] ...
Last modified: 4th Nov 2026
Shanks v Unilever Plc and others [2019] UKSC 45
Case Summaries
The Supreme Court held that patents for a glucose-testing device invented by Professor Shanks were of outstanding benefit to his Unilever employer under section 40 of the Patents Act 1977. A net benefit of about £24 million stood out against other patents from the same research company and was not to be treated as insignificant […] ...
Last modified: 4th Nov 2026
Cartier International AG and others v British Telecommunications Plc and another [2018] UKSC 28
Case Summaries
The Supreme Court held that trade mark owners who obtain a website-blocking injunction must normally indemnify an internet service provider for the reasonable extra cost of carrying it out. The providers do not themselves infringe the marks. English law treats them as innocent intermediaries, so the cost of protecting the marks is ordinarily a cost […] ...
Last modified: 4th Nov 2026
Warner-Lambert Company LLC v Generics (UK) Ltd t/a Mylan and another [2018] UKSC 56
Case Summaries
Warner-Lambert patented the use of pregabalin to treat pain. Its experiments supported a use for inflammatory pain. Did they also disclose enough to justify a claim covering neuropathic pain, which arises from damage to the nervous system? A majority held that they did not. That distinction determined the validity of the challenged claims. Warner-Lambert owned […] ...
Last modified: 3rd Nov 2026
Actavis UK Limited and others (Appellants) v Eli Lilly and Company (Respondent) [2017] UKSC 48
Case Summaries
Eli Lilly’s patent named a particular chemical salt. Actavis proposed using alternatives which, administered as intended, achieved substantially the same result. The dispute exposed a distinction in patent law. Reading the words of a claim tells the reader what it says, but a competitor may still infringe by making an immaterial change to the invention. […] ...
Last modified: 3rd Nov 2026
PMS International Group Plc v Magmatic Limited [2016] UKSC 12
Case Summaries
The Supreme Court dismissed Magmatic’s appeal and upheld the conclusion that PMS’s Kiddee Case did not infringe Magmatic’s Community registered design for the Trunki ride-on suitcase. The monochrome computer-aided images did not claim a shape alone: they created the overall impression of a horned animal, with the strap, strips, wheels and spokes in a contrasting […] ...
Last modified: 3rd Nov 2026
