News

European Commission proposes changes to Supplementary Protection Certificates Supplementary Protection Certificates (SPCs) are an intellectual property right that serve as an extension to a patent right (for up to five years) specific to pharmaceutical and plant products that must undergo extensive testing and clinical trials before being authorised by marketing authorities in Europe. Earlier in 2018,… Read more »

 AA Thornton reflect on the past year in the battery and energy storage industries On the 4th and 5th of December, Patent Attorneys Marianne Privett and David Blair attended the ‘Battery and Energy Storage Show 2018’ hosted by Warwick University (with Matt Havron joining them on the 5th December). At the event, Marianne and David… Read more »

Suzanne Power reports on recent EUIPO Board of Appeal case – Nikken International, Inc. v Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited Trade Mark Associate Suzanne Power recently contributed to the December edition of the Pharmaceutical Trade Mark Group’s Law, Lore & Practice publication. Suzanne reports on a recent decision from the EUIPO’s Board of Appeal regarding preparations used… Read more »

AA Thornton celebrates IP Inclusive Week AA Thornton took part in the celebration of IP Inclusive Week, to showcase the importance of diversity and inclusion in the IP professions. At the start of the week, IP Inclusive launched a pack for running a work experience day, making it easy for firms to invite students to… Read more »

Patenting Artificial Intelligence – CIPA’s Computer Technology Committee Training CIPA’s Computer Technology Committee provided an excellent update on ‘Computers and IP’ on 22 November in London, including contributions from AA Thornton partner Mike Jennings who chaired a panel discussing patentability of artificial intelligence. The panel focussed on the many technical applications of machine learning and… Read more »

The Legal 500 2019 edition has now been published and we are delighted that the firm has once again been ranked as a leading firm for both patents and trade marks, and that our level of service was recognised, once again, as “outstanding”: “The ‘excellent’ A.A. Thornton & Co. ‘goes the extra mile to provide… Read more »

Brexit: EU Trade Marks and Community Designs, including if there is ‘no deal’ What is the current situation? The UK is to leave the EU (“Brexit”) on 29 March 2019. When Brexit becomes fully effective, EU unitary trade mark registrations (“EUTMs”) and registered Community designs (“RCDs”) will cease to have effect in the UK, but… Read more »

The partners of AA Thornton are very pleased to announce that Alex Bone, Sarah Darby, Nikesh Patel, Dr Marianne Privett and Nick South have become Partners of the firm as from September 2018. All are extremely experienced attorneys, and valued members of their patent and trade marks teams. Alex is a patent attorney in our… Read more »

Raytheon Company awarded milestone US Patent No.10,000,000 On the 19th June 2018, the United States Patent and Trade Mark Office (USPTO)  issued US. Patent No. 10,000,000. Since the USPTO was created in 1790, it has effectively taken 228 years for this milestone to have been reached. Although this patent is not the ten millionth patent to be… Read more »

Careers in Ideas launch event Associate Patent Attorney Chris Burnett reflects on the launch of Careers In Ideas, and the work ahead to raise awareness of IP with students. “On 10 April 2018, a crowd of over 100 IP professionals, careers experts and students gathered at the Royal Society of Medicine for the launch of… Read more »