IP Transactions: Law and Practice – course brochure now out

The brochure for next year’s outing of IP Transactions: Law and Practice is now available for download here.  This 5-day course will be run from 17-21 February 2014 and attracts 29 CPD points.

This is the second annual outing of a course that is run at the UCL Faculty of Laws, in central London. The course is taught by approximately 25 experienced practitioners, including partners from leading IP and commercial law firms such as:

• Ashursts
• Bird & Bird
• Bristows
• Eversheds
• Linklaters
• Manches
• Olswang
• Pinsent Masons

Last year’s course was very well received, as can be seen from the students’ comments in the brochure.  Places are limited, so please register your interest in attending as soon as possible with Lisa Penfold, CPD Manager, at UCL Faculty of Laws, by email to lisa.penfold@ucl.ac.uk

Calling all newly-qualified IP lawyers: block out your diary for 17-21 Feb 2014

A flock of owls was seen in the skies above Bentham House. Pontifex Maximus has applied the jus auguralis. The omens are good.

UCL’s Faculty of Laws has confirmed that the course, Intellectual Property Transactions: Law and Practice, will be repeated in 2014, during the week of 17-21 February.

IP Draughts is aware that law firms are starting to plan their training programmes and budgets for the next year. A brochure and registration details will be published in the coming months; meanwhile this posting will serve as a reminder of some key points for those who are considering sending people on the course, or who are considering attending the course.

The 2014 course will follow a similar format to the 2013 version, with some tweaks, mentioned below.  The 2013 brochure can be found here.  Some key points, with particular reference to the 2013 outing (detailed planning of the 2014 course has not yet occurred), follow:

1. Location of course. The course is held at the UCL Faculty of Laws, Bentham House, in London, near Euston Station.  Accommodation can be arranged (at additional cost) for students who live outside London.
2. Purpose of course. The course is designed to provide a grounding in the law and practice surrounding the main types of intellectual property (IP) transaction.  Each day of this 5-day course is devoted to a different industry or market sector, including IP aspects of M&A, IT contracts, media contracts, pharmaceutical licensing, and IP aspects of contracts with government and universities.
3. Who is the course suitable for? We consider it is important to focus the teaching on a target audience, to avoid diluting its impact.  Our target audience is newly-qualified UK lawyers, who have between 0 and 2 years of qualification when they attend the course, but we will not turn away people who fall outside this category provided they appear to have the necessary abilities, training and practical experience to benefit from the course’s teaching (and provided the course is not full).  Students in 2013 were mostly in this category but there were also some more experienced lawyers who were moving into IP transactional work, as well as a few patent attorneys and technology transfer managers.
4. Method of teaching.  The course consists of a mixture of classroom lectures, and practical workshops where the terms of agreements and other transactional issues (eg due diligence investigations) are discussed.  Woven through the course is instruction in the IP and commercial law aspects of of assignments, licences, options, IP terms in business sale agreements, and other IP instruments.  Ancillary legal topics that affect IP transactions, including competition law, tax, insolvency, and security over IP, are discussed.  The course is taught by approximately 25 volunteers speakers, who are all experienced lawyer practitioners who specialise in IP or one of the ancillary legal subjects.
5. Materials.  Students are provided with approximately 80 documents (filling 5 ring binders), prepared by the speakers, which include papers on legal and practice subjects and examples of contract wording.
6. Continuing education.  The course attracts 29 CPD points.
7. Examination.  The course is followed by a voluntary, 2-hour exam.  In 2013, 17 people took the exam, resulting in 13 passes, and 4 passes with distinction.
8. Price.  In 2013, the course cost £2,500 plus VAT, with a 15% discount for UCL graduates, for sponsors of the Institute of Brands and Innovation Law at UCL, and for firms that provided speakers for the course.  The price for the 2014 course has not yet been fixed, but is likely to be comparable.
9. Student feedback.  At the end of the 2013 course, we asked students to assess the course under several headings.  The average scores for the course (out of a maximum of 5) were are follows:

Q1.         How did you find the administration of the course?  A1. Score: 4.67

Q2.         How did you find the quality of the legal content?  A2. Score: 4.6

Q3.         How did you find the quality of the practical content?  A3. Score: 4.53

Q4.         How did you find the quality of the speakers?  A4. Score: 4.6

Q5.         How did you find the quality of the course papers?  A5. Score: 4.6

Who has attended the course?

Students on the 2013 course included people from:

Major City of London law firms – eg Freshfields, Herbert Smith, Ashursts

London offices of major US law firms – eg Clearys, Covingtons, Lathams, MoFo

Specialist London firms – eg Bristows, Trowers & Hamlin

Multi-office UK law firms – eg Wragges, Shakespeares, Shoosmiths

In-house legal departments – eg Abbott, Synopsis, BP, Caterpillar

Public bodies, universities and charities – eg the Law Commission, Imperial College, UCL, Reading University, St George’s Hospital, Wellcome Trust

Tweaking the course in 2014

The basic format of the course is likely to remain the same in 2014 as in 2013, but in a spirit of “continuous improvement” we are considering the following tweaks, among others:

• streaming on one half-day or day of the course, so that students can choose between working on (1) university and pharmaceutical transactions, or (2) more specialist corporate transactions, eg securitisation of IP
• running a negotiation session on the Friday afternoon, in place of classroom lectures

Please let us know if you would like any further information, or to make a provisional booking.  The number of students will probably be limited to 48 in 2014.

An IP lawyer’s thoughts turn to Spring… cleaning

You’ve all done very well!

Exam success!

First of all, congratulations to the 17 students who learnt yesterday that they had passed the exam for the UCL course, Intellectual Property Transactions: Law and Practice.  Their Certificates in Intellectual Property Transactions should be with them in the next couple of weeks. Particular congratulations are due to the four students who obtained a Distinction in the exam, namely:

• Michael Gromett of Shakespeares
• Jennifer McDonald of Trowers & Hamlins
• Katy Newman of Covington and Burling
• Jordanna Popli of Wragges

On this day, 25 years ago…

First day in a law firm: induction, getting to grips with time entries, and a little light work for Glaxo

Spring-cleaning is happening at Anderson Towers.  This morning, IP Draughts was asked to confirm whether the contents of an old  box of work papers could be destroyed.  The contents turned out to be the notebooks on which IP Draughts recorded the time he spent on client matters during his period at Bristows, between 1987 and 1994.

On this day, 25 years ago, IP Draughts recorded 7 hours and 6 minutes on client matters.  The main projects on which he worked that day were:

• Advising Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine (now part of University College London) on a contract with Dakopatts A/S (a company involved in antibodies), including discussing the matter with Adam Cooke and calling Mr Henriksen, Assistant Secretary at the School.
• Preparing Instructions to Counsel in an IP matter for AB Connectors Limited, an electronics company based in Wales
• Several small projects for X/Open Company, a UNIX-based computer standards organisation, including working on a trade mark licence agreement, and a separate agreement with Nixdorf.
• Getting out a letter to Clive Crooks, then the Chief Executive of Xenova Limited (subsequently Xenova Group plc, a biopharmaceutical company that listed on the LSE and NASDAQ, and for which IP Draughts worked for many years until the company was sold in 2005).  Not sure what the letter concerned but it may have been comments on a draft contract with Du Pont.

So, should IP Draughts dispose of these notebooks, or keep them for another 25 years?  Decisions, decisions…

Setting up your own law firm can be very energising

Bradley Clark

Congratulations to Bradley Clark, a US attorney who focuses on business law, who has announced that he will soon be setting up his own law firm, after several years as a partner in a Texas law firm. Bradley is a fellow blogger and Tweeter (@bradleybclark) who shares with IP Draughts an enthusiasm for clearly-drafted contracts, and for the work of Ken Adams, author of a Manual of Style for Contract Drafting.

Seeing this announcement reminded IP Draughts of the excitement he felt when setting up Anderson & Company, Solicitors, in 1994.  If you are considering setting up your own firm, and you have established good relationships with clients, IP Draughts’ view is: go for it!  It’s really not that difficult to do.

Good luck in your exams

IP Draughts would like to wish the best of luck to all students who are taking tomorrow’s exam for the Certificate in Intellectual Property Transactions of University College London’s Faculty of Laws, and commiserations to those students whose client commitments make it impossible for them to take the exam.

Regrettably, Mr Pettifog does not share IP Draughts’ sentiments, and he has been heard to express the view that university education is a complete waste of time and money.  Mr Pettifog is of a generation when it was possible to qualify as a solicitor through a 5-year apprenticeship, without going to university.  This was the route that Mr Pettifog took to qualify.  He considers the recent proposals to increase access to the legal profession, by alternative qualification routes, as a return to the good old days of his youth.  He regards university graduates as effete non-entities, best exemplified by Lord Sebastian Flyte in Brideshead Rivisited, which he believes to be a documentary about university life.

However, all may not be as it seems.  The Anderson Towers archivist, Deirdre Sprockett, recently asked to speak to IP Draughts privately.  She had been updating the qualifications records of all the solicitors in our firm, and she noticed on Mr Pettifog’s file a reference to him having been rusticated from Denbigh Technical College in the 1950s for “inappropriate conduct with a teddy bear”.  There is no record of him undertaking articles over a 5-year period.  Ms Sprockett was concerned as to how IP Draughts could complete the Solicitors Regulation Authority annual form certifying that all solicitors in the practice have the necessary training and qualifications to practise.

Fortunately, IP Draughts had a solution.  He logged on to the SRA website and nominated Mr Pettifog as our firm’s “Compliance Officer for Qualifications and Training”.  Next year, Mr Pettifog will have to fill out the damned form.