VIRTUAL EVENT: COVID-19 and the UK IP Professions

About this virtual event

As governments around the world begin to ease lockdown measures, businesses are tentatively looking to revert to more normal practices. It is evident that the COVID crisis will serve as a catalyst for change, but what will the ‘new normal’ look like for the UK’s IP professions?

While IP professionals may hope they will fare better than most, what might we learn from big upheavals in the past? Many copyright and trade mark practitioners depend upon work from the now-struggling retail, leisure and entertainment sectors. Will any decrease in filings of trade marks, designs etc be off-set by an increase in IP litigation and transactional work? Is the patent attorney adage - that patents are recession-proof - likely to hold true?

And how are our day-to-day working practices likely to change so that we may interact safely with our clients, colleagues and adversaries? What is the best post-COVID way of cross-examining, adjudicating, recruiting, training, and so forth? Which current temporary measures should remain temporary, and which might pave the way for better ways of working in the future?

The panel for this session will look to address these and related issues from a variety of perspectives.

• Iona Berkeley, Barrister, 8 New Square.
• Sir Colin Birss, Justice of the High Court (Chancery Division) and nominated judge of the Patents Court.
• Gwilym Roberts, Patent Attorney, Kilburn & Strode LLP, Council Member of CIPA and Honorary Visiting Professor at Queen Mary University of London. -
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  1_uclibil_covid-19_03_roberts.pdf

• Katharine Stephens, Solicitor, co-head of IP at Bird & Bird in London and member of the firm’s International IP Steering Group.
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  1_uclibil_covid-19_03_stephens.pdf

• Catherine Wolfe, Trade Mark Attorney, Boult Wade Tennant LLP, Council Member and Past President of CITMA
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  1_uclibil_covid-19_03_wolfe.pdf

Chair: Professor Sir Robin Jacob (UCL Laws and Director of IBIL)

Watch the film of this session

Other events in this COVID-19 and IP series

Missed either of the earlier COVID-19: IP Law, Policy and Practice Sessions 1 and 2? Watch the event recordings and review the speakers’ handouts here.

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