Younger no more. A big katpat goes to Serena Tierney (head of IP, Bircham Dyson Bell LLP) for letting us know that Baroness Neville-Rolfe DBE has replaced Viscount Younger of Leckie as Minister for Intellectual Property in the UK government. Baroness Neville-Rolfe was appointed Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills yesterday. Her interests include art, architecture, cricket, racing and gardening [which probably makes her better qualified than several of her predecessors to hold the brief for intellectual property, adds Merpel].
Back in March 2012, the Indian Patent Office granted its first-ever Indian compulsory licence to Natco to produce and sell Bayer’s anti-cancer drug, Nexavar [noted by the IPKat here]. Bayer, having lost on appeal before the Indian Patent Appeal Board (IPAB), appealed further to the Mumbai High Court. This Tuesday 15 July the Mumbai High Court dismissed Bayer’s appeal, stating that there is “no reason to interfere with the [IPAB’s decision]”. A katpat goes to Michael Lin (Marks&Clerk Hong Kong) for spotting this and drawing it to our attention.
Following his earlier blog post today, inviting readers to advise the UK government on whether it should make representations to the Court of Justice of the European Union on two appeals on Community trade mark matters, this Kat has just spotted a little note at the end of the UK Intellectual Property Office's circular concerning readers' comments. It reads:
Please note: The information you supply will be held in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1988 and the Freedom of Information Act 2000. Information will only be used for its intended purpose. It will not be published, sold or used for sales purposes.If you thought that the UKIPO was about to cash in on your wise comments, you can now stop worrying and breathe easily. Merpel adds: readers' comments won't be "be published, sold or used for sales purposes" -- but it doesn't say that they'll be read either ...
![]() |
| Some people say that printing out blogposts to read them at your leisure enhances the reading experience ... |









