UCL Institute of Brand and Innovation Law (IBIL) and MARQUES, the European Association of Trade Mark Owners, invite you to meet and questions some of the judges that are regularly deciding our trade mark disputes.

Question the Trade Mark Judges

The chair The Rt Hon Professor Sir Robin Jacob will pose a set of pre-selected questions from the audience to: 

• The Rt Hon Lord Justice Kitchin
• Allan James, Senior Hearing Officer and Head of Trade Mark Tribunal, UK IPO
• Daniel Alexander QC, Appointed Person
• The Rt Hon Sir Konrad Schiemann 

on Wednesday 17 October 2012
from 6 - 7.30pm 

Programme:

About the panellists: 

Lord Justice Kitchin studied Natural Sciences as an undergraduate at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge before switching to Law in his final year and was called to the Bar (Gray's inn)  in 1977. He has been a Bencher there since 2003. Kitchin became a Queen's Cousel in 1994 and was appointed a Deputy High Court Judge in 2001. In 2005, he was appointed to the High Court and assigned to the Chancery Division. In 2011, Kitchin was appointed a Lord Justice of Appeal.

Allan James became Head of Examination at the Intellectual Property Office in 1994 and then Head of the Office's Trade Mark Tribunal in May 2007. He is a senior Hearing Officer at the IPO and also a Company Name Adjudicator. Allan entered the field of intellectual property in 1988 when he joined the Patent Office (as it then was) and became one its Hearing Officers in 1991. He has gone on to deal with many of the high profile trade mark cases before the IPO including Ever Ready (the first dilution case in the UK), Duckams Green Oil (first inter partes dispute over a colour), Diana, Princess of Wales Trade Mark, Dyson’s Clear Bin Trade Mark, Have a Break, (the last two triggering preliminary references to the European Court of Justice) and, more recently, Direct line v esure in their dispute over a three dimensional computer mouse on wheels trade mark, and Cadbury v Nestle in their dispute about Cadbury's colour purple trade mark.

Daniel Alexander QC is a Visiting Professor at UCL, a barrister at 8 New Square Chambers and an Appointed Person under the Trade Marks Act 2009. His practice area covers litigation of intellectual property cases, including IT and media/entertainment cases, competition, EC, commercial and administrative law. He also has experience of international and EC cases include multi-jurisdictional IP issues, private international law, and the international arbitration of IP and media disputes. Daniels' prominent trade mark work includes the leading ECJ cases Canon, BMW/Deenik Nichols, Gerolsteiner, Doublemint, Philips/Remington, Davidoff/Levis and Celltech.

Sir Konrad Schiemann has been a Judge at the European Court of Justice since 2004. He became a barrister in 1964 and took Silk in 1980. He became a Justice of the High Court of England and Wales in 1986 and a Lord Justice of Appeal in 1995. He is a Bencher at Inner Temple and was Treasurer in 2003.