Liberating the NHS: Regulating healthcare providers

The Department of Health is consulting on a range of radical initiatives linked to the Health White Paper. One of these: 'Liberating the NHS: regulating healthcare providers', concerns its proposal to establish Monitor as an economic regulator for the healthcare sector.

Consultation, consultation, consultation

A key principle of English democracy is that the courts do not interfere with the will of parliament.

Specsavers v Asda - UK court focuses on Asda's unfair advantage taking (but provides no clear view on how to establish trade mark infringement by dilution)

Specsavers has successfully established that Asda infringed its community trade mark for the word "SPECSAVERS" by Asda's use of the tag line "Be a real spec saver at Asda" during its 2009 campaign to promote its in-store opticians.

A new & improved patents county court?

Many of the proposals to reform the junior Intellectual Property Court of England and Wales (the Patents County Court) put forward by the Intellectual Property Court Users Committee last year will come into effect on 1 October 2010.

EPCs and DECs - more changes ahead

A new EU Directive has now been passed and must be brought into effect in the UK by 9 January 2013, although the government has hinted that certain changes may be implemented sooner. Find out what this means for you and your business.