What does plain packaging mean for intellectual property?

Following votes in the House of Commons and House of Lords in March in favour of standardising cigarette packaging, we could see rules finalised that will force cigarette packets sold in England to adopt the same uniform look. David Cameron recently repeated his party’s commitment to introducing ‘healthy’ packaging in their manifesto. What this means…

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How IP Rules Are Changing Music Streaming Services

The Blurred Lines copyright case is still contributing plenty of column inches in the press, months after the judgement was officially announced. While many in the music industry have spoken about their apprehensiveness over the possible impact of the ruling on the creativity of artists, it’s piracy rather than plagiarism that has generally speaking posed…

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Intellectual property and undergraduates

According to statistics from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, a degree can increase the earning potential of graduates in the UK by an estimated £165,000 for men and £250,000 for women over the course of their working lives. So, why do many of the most successful inventors and entrepreneurs of our time leave…

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Should intellectual property be taught in schools?

Years after you’ve left the classroom it’s easy to wonder exactly why you spent valuable lesson time learning about Pythagoras’s theorem or the phases of the moon, though the former is admittedly on occasion useful when it comes to putting up shelves. Alongside academic achievement that propels children on to higher education there is the…

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Bloggers and intellectual property

Often overlooked when it comes to intellectual property matters, as publishers of content and creative ideas, bloggers can come against a world of intellectual property problems both online and off. Frequently the focus is placed on them accidentally infringing copyright – using the photographs of others without permission, publishing copyrighted recipes in full or borrowing…

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When lifehacks pose a problem for intellectual property

We’re all familiar with imitation handbags and dodgy ‘designer’ sunglasses that people might try to sell you while you’re on holiday but there are some common more everyday intellectual property issues out there that you may not have considered to pose an IP problem. You might have come across them under the guise of a…

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The UK Intellectual property update: what you need to know

While it’s hardly a case of new law for New Year, intellectual property legislation in the UK did receive an update last autumn and 2015 is the year when we’ll see it being put into practice. With this in mind, we’ve decided to take a little look to the amendments first introduced in October 2014…

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copyright

Developing Intellectual Property – Top Five Tips

Whether they know it or not, every business owns Intellectual Property (IP) in one form or another. IP can be a critical part of a company’s assets, providing it with ability to prevent competition and rapidly scale the business by licensing. Indeed, many businesses would not exist if they had not taken proper steps to…

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