Knowledge Hub

AA Thornton Partners’ personal diversity pledges At AA Thornton we strive to be an inclusive organisation in which every employee can bring their whole self to work. To meet this goal we have an active Diversity and Inclusion Committee who work on ways to break down the barriers that may prevent talented individuals from seeking… Read more »

The Nagoya Protocol and the UK – are you compliant? The Nagoya Protocol has been in force in the UK since October 2015 and obliges users of genetic resources and traditional knowledge associated with genetic resources to comply with due diligence requirements before its ‘utilisation’. There is also an obligation to make a due diligence… Read more »

UK government faces challenges over future exhaustion of IP rights regime Brexit created ‘one way door’ policy for parallel imports, say AA Thornton partners Ian Gill and Dan Byrne This article was first posted by The Global Legal Post  as event coverage for Ian and Dan’s presentation ‘Exhaustion of rights’ for the Anti-counterfeiting World Summit…. Read more »

Using IP to effectively combat online celebrity endorsement scams As reported in the BBC recently, the National Cyber Security Centre (“NCSC”) has released its Active Cyber Defence Report for 2020. In that report it has stated that ‘celebrity endorsement scams’ are a relatively new type of scam in relation to which it has started performing takedowns…. Read more »

AA Thornton recommended in The Financial Times – ‘Europe’s Leading Patent Law Firms’ – 2021 We are delighted to share our team of patent experts have again been recognised as one of ‘Europe’s Leading Patent Law Firms’ by The Financial Times! Thank you to our clients and contacts for taking part in the research, carried out… Read more »

We have provided the UK patent chapter of Lexology Getting The Deal Through (GTDT), an online tool that allows you to directly compare law and regulation between jurisdictions. Partners Geoff Hussey, Dan Byrne, Craig Turner and Mike Jennings have provided clear answers to a range of questions posed by Lexology under headings that include Patent… Read more »

Deadline approaching for the Government R&D Tax Credits Consultation – your input needed for potential changes to RDEC and SME R&D Relief Government R&D Tax Credits Consultation: The UK government intends to raise investment in research and development to 2.4% of UK GDP by 2027 and wants to ensure that one of the key incentives for… Read more »

Ian Gill reports on how miniscule trademark use may be enough to support a passing off claim and maintain a EU trademark registration. This article was written by Ian for the IPKat legal blog Don’t be fooled: decision O/050/21 is not just another unsuccessful appeal to the UK Appointed Person (approximately 85% of such appeals are unsuccessful). Underlying… Read more »

Retail and Trade Mark expert Suzanne Power provides an update on UK AFAs and the new procedure for recording IP rights with UK customs authorities, a simple and effective way to take counterfeit goods off the market In this article, we provide an update on filing a UK AFA and how this decision should be… Read more »

AA Thornton welcomes five candidates for Virtual work insight days 2021 Earlier this month, we were delighted to welcome five engaging candidates to our first virtual work insight days, including the great-granddaughter of our founding partner Alfred Augustus Thornton.  The two day event was an opportunity for the students to have a practical insight into… Read more »