Actavis, 3 years on: much ado about nothing?

Douglas Campbell QC, 3 New Square

Douglas is one of the few silks to excel at both hard and soft IP.  His recent cases in the Court of Appeal include Icescape v Ice-World (patent: leading case on infringement under the doctrine of equivalents following the change in the law made by the Supreme Court in Actavis v Lilly); AP Racing v Alcon Components (patent), Frank v Nike (trade mark, upholding interim injunction granted in IPEC),  London Taxis v Metrocab (shape trade mark), Comic v Twentieth Century Fox (“Glee” trade mark).

Comic settled on the eve of the hearing in the Supreme Court in November 2017. His range of work at first instance is even broader: from pharma patent cases such as Warner-Lambert v Highland Health Board (second medical use) and Boehringer Ingelheim v Teva (fifth most commonly prescribed drug on the NHS) to telecommunications patents (Semafone v Eckoh, payment systems; BT v Assia, ADSL technology) to computer games (Blizzard v Bossland, copyright in “Overwatch” game; Bethesda v ABT, “Fallout” game, trade mark) to champagne and polo (Veuve Clicquot v Polistas, trade mark).