News story: UK overseas intellectual property attaché network

Updated: New attaché Angelica Garcia added.

Also referred to as Intellectual Property (IP) attachés, the IP liaison officers work with local UK Department for International Trade (DIT) and Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) leads to provide support for UK businesses seeking advice on local IP matters.

They also:

raise awareness of through business outreach. This includes briefing business delegations, joint webinars with DIT and local trade associations
liaise with host governments and stakeholders about local and international IP frameworks / environment

Contact details

Christabel Koh: South East Asia

Joined Intellectual Property Office (IPO): September 2013

Career history: Enjoyed several years covering international engagement at the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS) and IP Academy Singapore.

Focus in SE Asia: Christabel plays an instrumental role in promoting and supporting British businesses in South East Asia. She represents a point of contact for one-to-one IP support to UK businesses; leads awareness-raising through business and stakeholder outreach events; and conducts policy dialogue with host governments across the region to discuss local and international IP frameworks and environments.

Contact details: email: Christabel.Koh2@fco.gov.uk; tel: +65 6424 4229; address: British High Commission Singapore, 100 Tanglin Road, Singapore 247919.

Tom Duke: China

Joined IPO: December 2011

Career history: Tom Duke was appointed the first UK IP attaché to China in December 2011. Prior to joining the British Embassy in Beijing, he was Director responsible for the IP Centre at the EU Chamber of Commerce in Seoul, South Korea. He speaks fluent Mandarin, and has been living and working in the region for nine years.

Focus in China: The Chinese IP framework is fast developing, and the UK is a key international partner. Tom, and his policy team in Beijing, provide direct support to UK companies with concerns across the IP spectrum, particularly in supporting enforcement outcomes. He also works closely with a number of Chinese government agencies on IP, to share UK expertise and best practice. This work is bolstered by several IPO visits to China each year.

Contact details: email: Tom.Duke2@fco.gov.uk ; tel: +86-10-5192-4495; address: British Embassy, 11 Guanghua Lu, Beijing 100200.

Angelica Garcia: Brazil

Joined IPO: August 2016

Career history: Career history: Lawyer with a LL.M in IP & International Trade from Queen Mary University. London. She was formerly Director of Marketing & Business Development for ACE Aceleratech start-up accelerator in Brazil and Latin America and worked on Deloitte’s German-Brazilian Desk. Most recently she worked for the Department for International Trade (formerly UKTI) of the British Government.

Focus in Brazil: Assisting UK companies who have IP issues in Brazil and working closely with Government to ensure that there is a strong IP framework. This includes outreach with both officials and business, highlighting the benefits of a strong IP system. Specific areas of interest include addressing backlogs in patents and trade marks, Geographical Indications (GIs), pharmaceuticals and IP enforcement.

Contact details: email: angelica.garcia@fco.gov.uk; tel: +55 11 3094 2729; address: British Consulate General, Rua Ferreira de Araújo, 741, São Paulo, Brazil – 05428-002.

Anshika Jha: India

Joined IPO: May 2012

Career history: Dual qualified lawyer – a Solicitor in England / Wales and an Advocate in India. Having practiced law in India and worked at a leading law firm in London, Anshika has a solid grasp of Indian IP issues and UK companies’ IP concerns.

Focus in India: Anshika has assisted numerous British businesses facing IP-related issues in India as well as providing advice and guidance on the Indian IP environment. In addition to ongoing business support, in the last year her focus has been on delivering copyright related projects in conjunction with Indian Trade Associations.

From 23 January 2015, Anshika will be on maternity leave and her post will be covered by Vijay Iyer. Vijay is primarily based in the British Deputy High Commission, Mumbai but also spends time in the British High Commission, New Delhi. Previously, he was a Senior Science & Innovation Adviser with the UK Science & Innovation Network and led on efforts to foster UK-India research partnerships. Vijay has nearly six years professional experience in technology transfer and innovation management with organisations such as Temple University and the Boston Consulting Group in the USA, and the CSIR-National Chemical Laboratory in India. Vijay earned a PhD (Chemistry) from the University of Fribourg, Switzerland and an MBA (Finance) from the Fox School of Business, Philadelphia, USA. He is a Registered Patent Agent in India.

Contact details: email: Vijay.Iyer@fco.gov.uk; tel: +91 22 6650 2202; address: British Deputy High Commission, Mumbai – 400051.

Useful guides

Source: UK IPO News

Updated: Case C-231/16 added.

The Intellectual Property Office (IPO) publishes information on cases that comes to its attention concerning intellectual property matters. We publish the specific questions that the CJ is being asked to answer and brief details, such as the parties to the case and relevant legislation.

Why we alert our stakeholders on Court of Justice cases

EU Member States are invited to make observations on CJ cases. For cases concerning intellectual property, the IPO provides advice to Ministers, who decide whether the UK should submit observations and intervene in CJ cases.

If you wish to express your views on CJ cases you can e-mail us. We also provide a CJ e-mail alert service, which provides an e-mail notification to subscribers when a new case is posted on our website. If you no longer wish to receive CJ notification e-mails please send us an e-mail titled unsubscribe CJ to policy@ipo.gov.uk.

How to use the CJ case table

The case table includes preliminary rulings where national courts submit questions concerning the interpretation or validity of a provision of Union law for intellectual property cases, and Appeals against Judgments from the General Court. We include the following information in the table:

deadline by which the CJ requires any observations on preliminary rulings or interventions for appeals from the General Court
provides links to an opinion or a judgment when delivered
whether a case has been stayed, this can occur at any stage

In the case table you can find the questions referred to the Courts in the first column. For cases under appeal from the General Court, there is a link to the General Court judgment.

In addition, the IPO (on occasion) receives notification of cases concerning intellectual property, which are heard by other European courts (for example, the European Free Trade Association Court). In this instance, consultations and publication of these cases will be completed here.

When we update our website

We aim to publish information on new CJ cases as soon as we receive them. Although our target is a maximum of two days we often publish them within 24 hours. As soon as the website is updated we issue emails via our CJ alert service to those that have subscribed to this service.

Details of pre 2012 cases are available from The National Archives.

Deadlines and how we calculate them

We face tight time limits in which to consider and provide advice on CJ cases. EU Member States have two months after receiving notification from the CJ in which to make written observations. The two months includes the time to prepare the submission to the CJ, which takes a minimum of five weeks. The deadline given takes the above factors into account and is set accordingly.

In practice, this usually gives us less than two weeks in which to consider the case and any comments before we provide advice to our Minister.

How to provide useful comments

If you wish to express your views on a CJ case you should email us at policy@ipo.gov.uk.
We understand how difficult it is to provide detailed comments in the time available. Should you wish to submit a comment all we need is a short email, received before the deadline, saying

whether you think the UK should intervene and; general points about how you think the questions should be answered and why
you are welcome to follow this email up with more detailed comments after the deadline, which can be taken into consideration if we have chosen to submit observations or if we attend a hearing

Please be aware that failure to meet the deadline means that we may be unable to take your interest in the reference into account when deciding whether or not to intervene.

For CJ references that you are aware of, that are not included on this site, you are also welcome to express your views by email to policy@ipo.gov.uk. To help us identify the case in question please include clear information about the case.

Discussion of the content of UK observations

We carefully consider all comments provided to us but, in the interests of fairness, do not discuss the content of UK observations with individual stakeholders.