Articles by ‘Stephen Welfare’

The English High Court recently, for the first time, granted a website blocking order against cyberlocker and stream ripping sites, prompting the writer to question who is winning the battle between self styled champions of the free web and the intellectual property right holders?

This article summarises some of the key developments expected in commercial, consumer and contract law in the UK in 2021 and beyond.

Pride comes before a fall, so the proverb goes, meaning if you are too full of yourself, something will happen to make you look foolish. Is that the case here?

Last month [October] it was widely reported in the trade and national press that Reigate High Street Jewellers, Phillip Lloyd Jewellers (“PLJ”) lost its Court case against a disgruntled customer over a lost diamond.  PLJ has been ordered to compensate the customer up to £30,000.

With the showbiz Johnny Depp –v- Sun Newspaper defamation case being widely reported in the media the public are seeing images of the combatants and witnesses arriving and leaving the High Court in London wearing face masks. But are they obliged to do so when in Court?

Whether you are a claimant, a defendant, a witness or even a juror, attending courts has changed with the systems adapting to lockdown.

Your intrepid intellectual property lawyer has once again packed his briefcase and set off to Britain’s second largest city for the annual Trade Fair at the NEC.

The retail sector is a fast moving and highly competitive industry, one in which failure to foresee challenges ahead of the competition can make the difference between boom and bust. This is particularly poignant in the jewellery industry, where discerning customers expect the highest quality products to go hand in hand with customer service and experience.

Each year when #BlackFriday and the Christmas sales period approaches, retailers (and accordingly suppliers) are looking forward to their busiest time of the year and a return on the R&D work throughout the year. For fashion-led industries such as jewellery, seasonal variations and being ‘on trend’ can make a big difference: get it right and your product is the must have this Christmas and you’ll be ‘quids in’, but get it wrong and you’ll be in potential financial difficulty. So design is key.

Copycat products are relatively common. Supermarkets’ own products often seem to be designed to be mistaken for popular brands; what, if anything, can the owners of the ‘original’ intellectual property, do about it? A recent case looked into copyright in a product that changes appearance with use – a makeup powder.

The Duchess of Sussex has issued proceedings against Associated Newspapers over the publication by The Mail on Sunday of a private letter written by her to her father. Prince Harry has launched an attack on the British Press expressing his fears that his “wife was falling victim to the same powerful forces” that his mother faced.

Stephen Welfare, Head of our Intellectual Property team at RWK Goodman attended day two of the IJL 2019 trade show. The annual event was held at London Olympia, West Kensington.