Question the trade mark judges (IBIL / MARQUES)

Admission: Fees apply
Accreditation: This event is accredited with 1.5 CPD hours by the SRA, BSB and IPREG. It also constituted relevant CPD.
Series: Institute of Brand and Innovation Law, with MARQUES

UCL Institute of Brand and Innovation Law (IBIL) and MARQUES, the European Association of Trade Mark Owners, invite you to put your questions to some of the judges that are – or were until recently – deciding our trade mark disputes. Chaired by The Rt Hon. Professor Sir Robin Jacob, panellists will answer a set of pre-selected questions from the audience.

Panellists

• Nicholas Forwood QC (Judge of the General Court of the Court of Justice of the European Union)
• Marianne Grabrucker (former Presiding Judge in the Trade Mark Boards of the Bundespatentgericht (German Federal Patents Court)
• Geoffrey Hobbs QC (barrister, One Essex Court, and senior “Appointed Person” hearing Appeals from the UK Registrar of Trade Marks)
• Oliver Morris (UK Intellectual Property Office Senior Hearing Officer)

Chair

• The Rt Hon Professor Sir Robin Jacob (Sir Hugh Laddie Chair of Intellectual Property Law)

About the panellists

Sir Nicholas Forwood has been the UK judge at the EU General Court in Luxembourg since 1999, a position he steps down from in October 2015. He has been the Vice President of UKAEL since 2007.

Born in 1948, he was educated at Cambridge University (BA 1969, MA 1973 (Mechanical Sciences and Law)), and was called to the English Bar in 1970, thereafter practising in London (1971-99) and also in Brussels (1979-99).

Sir Nicholas was called to the Irish Bar in 1981; appointed Queen’s Counsel 1987; Bencher of the Middle Temple 1998; representative of the Bar of England and Wales at the Council of the Bars and Law Societies of the EU (CCBE) and Chairman of the CCBE’s Permanent Delegation to the European Court of Justice (1995-99); Governing Board member of the World Trade Law Association and European Maritime Law Organisation (1993-2002).

Marianne Grabrucker studied law in Munich and Berlin. The first 10 years she practiced as executive and judge in administration law. After that she was promoted to the Federal Patent Court in 1990.

Betwween 2000 and 2013 she was the Presiding Judge of the 29th Trademark Board at the German Federal Patent Court. She has published numerous articles on trade mark law, especially with respect to non-conventional trade marks, retail services trade marks and to bad faith. Furthermore she is co-author of a commentary on procedural law in trade marks at the Patent Court of Germany.

She is an expert in international relationships in creating Trade Mark Law for new member states of the WTO in Asia in South-East-Europe. She teaches patent attorney trainees and lawyers in trade mark law, as well as students at the University of Dresden.

Geoffrey Hobbs QC is an advocate and advisor specialising in intellectual property law and related aspects of competition and commercial law. Winner of the IP/IT Silk of The Year 2012 Award at the Chambers Bar Awards, he is recommended as a Leading Silk by both Chambers UK (IP) and The Legal 500 (IP, Information Technology and Media, Entertainment & Sport).

Geoffrey is authorised to sit as a Deputy Judge in the High Court of England & Wales (Chancery Division). He is also the senior Appointed Person hearing Appeals from the UK Registrar of Trade Marks under s76 Trade Marks Act 1994.

He has acted as Arbitrator in both ICC and LCIA proceedings and is also an elected member of the SIAC Panel of Arbitrators.

Oliver Morris is a Principal Hearing Officer in the Trade Marks and Designs Tribunal. He is a life-long trade mark specialist having worked in the Intellectual Property Office’s trade marks division since 1991.

Oliver has performed a number of key technical and managerial roles over the years including work on the introduction of various new pieces of legislation including the relative grounds changes and the proof of use regime. As a Principal Hearing Officer, Oliver performs a quasi-judicial role, hearing and deciding the full range of contentious trade mark opposition, post registration, and design validity disputes.

In 2008 Oliver became one of the first Company Name Adjudicators appointed under the Companies Act to resolve conflicts between registered company names and trade names.

The programme

17:30 – Registration: Cruciform Building Foyer
18:00 – Welcome and main event – Cruciform Lecture Theatre 1
19:30 – Reception in the North Cloisters

Watch the video of the event on YouTube