10th Annual Sir Hugh Laddie Lecture - HH Michael Fysh QC SC

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10th Annual Sir Hugh Laddie Lecture - HH Michael Fysh QC SC

20 Jun 2018, 18:00 – 19:15

UCL Institute of Brand and Innovation Law (IBIL):
The 10th Annual Sir Hugh Laddie Lecture

Apologia pro vita sua:
A hifi retrospective and a modest prospective

by
His Honour Michael Fysh QC, SC

Chaired by
The Rt Hon Professor Sir Robin Jacob
Sir Hugh Laddie Chair of Intellectual Property Law, UCL Faculty of Laws

Wednesday 20 June 2018

About the talk:

Rather than speculative consideration of developments in the field of IP or worse, comment on recent case law, the second judge of the former Patents County Court will speak of his own experiences, good,bad and neutral, over fifty years as an IP practitioner. The story will range from his time as a disappointed organic chemist at Oxford, to the day Mr Laddie arrived in Chambers as a pupil and to his near demise in the Caribbean at the hands of the Mafia.

About the speaker:

Michael Fysh was born in the USA where his early education was undertaken. He is a British national. He attended Downside School and after a year at Grenoble University (France) read Natural Sciences (Chemistry) at Oxford (BA 1962, MA 1969). Judge Fysh was called to the Bar by the Inner Temple in 1963 and for some 25 years practised as a barrister in the field of Intellectual Property in England and Ireland. He was appointed QC in 1989, QC in Northern Ireland (1990), SC in Trinidad & Tobago (1990) and SC in Dublin in 1994 (where he was a subscribing member of the Bar Library for many years). Judge Fysh has also practised extensively in Commonwealth countries having been called to the Bar in New South Wales and admitted to practise as an advocate in both India and Pakistan. He has acted as an arbitrator and has lectured extensively for inter alia WIPO, Geneva, EPO, OHIM and the UK Foreign Office. He also participates in judicial instruction at the Indian Institute of Judicial Studies, Bhopal.

He was author of Russell-Clarke on Registered Designs (5th Edn.) and for over 20 years was editor of the specialist Reports of Patent Cases and Fleet Street Reports. He was author of The Spycatcher Cases (The European Law Centre 1989), The IP Citator (Sweet & Maxwell 1982 and continuing) and is Editor of Butterworth’s Modern Law of Patents (2005 and 2010). He has contributed articles to both British and overseas legal journals.

Judge Fysh served on the International Relations Committee of the Bar Council. He became head of the IP chambers at 8 New Square, Lincoln’s Inn in 1993 succeeding Thomas Blanco-White QC and Robin (later, Lord Justice) Jacob QC. He is currently visiting Professor at the Indian Institute of IP Law, New Delhi.

In 1999 Judge Fysh was appointed a Deputy High Court judge (Chancery Division) and later, in 2001, was made Senior Circuit Judge having responsibility for the Patents County Court in England and Wales. He was also a judge of the Technology and Construction Court and a deputy High Court judge. In 2005 he was appointed Chairman of the UK Copyright Tribunal.

Judge Fysh received an Honorary Doctorate in Laws from the University of Wolverhampton in 2007 and became a fellow of the Institute of Intellectual Property Law at the University of Oxford in 2010.

Judge Fysh retired from both the Bench and the Copyright Tribunal - in 2010, though he remains his successor’s Deputy. He is now engaged in mediation and opinion work from his former Chambers, with lecturing - and with Court work overseas – the latter being in the field of IP.

Judge Fysh is an accredited CEDR mediator and has also attended the WIPO mediation course in Geneva.

In July 2011, Judge Fysh was appointed president of the UK Chapter of GEMME, the international association of judges and retired judges who are concerned with mediation.

In April 2012, Judge Fysh was elected to be an Honorary Member of the Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys.
Over the last 5 years Judge Fysh has lectured extensively on IP matters mostly to European organisations and has presided over judicial training sessions for the Unified Patents Court (UPC).

Judge Fysh speaks French, His interests range from travel, bird watching and forestry to the customary laws of the Channel Islands. He is married with three (grown-up) children and lives in London and in France.