Crown use: Linking telecoms, pandemics and climate change?

Crown use is a rarely used defence, which enables the Government to exploit third party patent rights in particular circumstances.  This session will discuss the situations in which the Crown use defence may be invoked. 

It could be said that if there was a time to raise the Crown use defence, it would be now, during the prevailing COVID-19 pandemic.  However, so far, there has been no need to do so, and the defence has only come to the fore in an ongoing technology dispute.

A recent UK Court of Appeal decision in IPCom v Vodafone, a case about mobile telecommunications, narrowed the scope of this defence, but raised wider questions as to its applicability.  Our experts will consider this decision, its relevance for the life sciences industry, and whether the developing climate change crisis may result in such an emergency situation which will bring this defence into play. Our panel will also consider whether this decision may impact public procurement and interactions with the UK government. 

This webinar will be of interest to a wide range of clients, including those in the technology and life sciences spaces, those working in public procurement and those who are interested in climate change, as well of being of general interest.