Knowledge Hub

Court of Appeal confirms requirement for human inventor in ‘DABUS’ case   On 21 September 2021 the Court of Appeal handed down its decision in THALER v COMPTROLLER GENERAL concerning allowability of UK patents having an AI based machine known as DABUS (short for Device for the Autonomous Bootstrapping of Unified Sentience) listed as an inventor. A… Read more »

Exhausted? You’re not alone…! What next for parallel imports after Brexit? This article was first written by our experts Ian Gill and Suzanne Power for PTMG’s Law Lore & Practice Newsletter   Background 1 January 2021 marked the start of a new era for the United Kingdom and European Union. On that date, some four… Read more »

Innovate UK Smart Grants – Competition Opens! Innovate UK are “the UK’s innovation agency” and are part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) which is a national funding agency investing in science and research in the UK. Their mission is to “drive productivity and economic growth by supporting businesses to develop and realise the potential… Read more »

Post Brexit – the final countdown … Don’t forget the 30 September 2021 deadline for filing comparable UK trade mark or design applications based on any EU trade marks or designs that were pending at the end of the Brexit transition period.  Since Brexit took effect this year, those rights will no longer cover the… Read more »

Post Brexit – the final countdown … Don’t forget the 30 September 2021 deadline for filing comparable UK trade mark or design applications based on any EU trade marks or designs that were pending at the end of the Brexit transition period.  Since Brexit took effect this year, those rights will no longer cover the… Read more »

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 »