3 minute read
Challenges for the
We are living through very strange times. The impact of Covid-19, with the accompanying lockdown, has totally changed the way in which we are all working, and the shape of economic and social activity everywhere. For the IPReg staff, it has meant everyone working from home, with Board meetings and discussions taking place online, but with a formidable quantity of work still to be done. I can’t help thinking how fortunate we were to put our new CRM system in place last year, which has meant that we are able to cope well with the new digital working environment.
The broader impact of Covid on the business of intellectual property protection is difficult to assess at the moment. There is still a lot of continuing work on patents and trade marks going on, that was started before lockdown happened. But will the economic hiatus that has hit the country mean a subsequent dip in IP activity? I suspect there may be a bit of an impact of this kind. But what to me is much more important is the realisation that IP will be crucial to any economic recovery that we are going to have. As we all try to lift the UK economy out of Covid recession, it is intellectual property that is going to lead the way, especially as we come to terms with a differently-shaped world from
Challenges for the IP professions Chris Smith
the one we were used to before. And you can’t have cutting-edge IP work going on without the protection of trade marks and patents.
There is however an additional lurking problem that we will have to face – and that (I’m afraid) is the prospect of Brexit happening for real at the end of December. At the moment we are in a semi-Brexit state: we have left the EU, but rights of trade mark representation before the UK IPO, but UK-based attorneys should not have a reciprocal right before the EUIPO. This surely can’t be right. It should either be the case that both have reciprocal rights of representation, or that neither do. I hope that the CITMA campaign for more even-handedness in this does bear some fruit. It will be especially important for smaller-scale
we still have transitional arrangements in place that mean that very little has actually changed. That may all come to a juddering halt on 31 December. And whilst patent attorneys have a degree of protection (though there will be impacts) it will be trade mark attorneys who will be especially affected. At the moment, though, there is a fundamental unfairness built into the negotiations the UK is conducting. They appear to be conceding that EU-based attorneys should have trade mark attorney practitioners.
It is at times of challenge and difficulty that intellectual property comes particularly into its own. And heaven knows, we are in the midst of real challenge and difficulty, on more than one front. It behoves all of us, practitioners, regulators, advocates, representatives, to make sure we come through it all intact. IPReg will certainly be playing its part.
Lord Chris Smith, Chair of IPReg
In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, the decision has been made to postpone the Introductory Patent Administrators Course (IPAC) for 2020. Over the next few months we will be reviewing the course layout alongside the current climate with hope of starting the course early in 2021. We aim to communicate our plans to you once they have been confirmed.
What will the course look like? We are, as with most physical events / courses around the world, discussing the different possibilities available to us to continue to run IPAC without impacting on the standard of the course.
We apologise for any inconvenience caused by the postponement and if there are any additional questions or concerns please contact us at pac@cipa.org.uk
