A book, let it guide you.

NEW 6TH EDITION
Guidebook to Intellectual Property

By Sir Robin Jacob, Daniel Alexander QC and Matthew Fisher

This is a unique book about Intellectual Property. It is aimed not only at law students studying the subject but also at interested users of IP - business people, inventors, scientists, designers and the like. It provides an outline of the basic legal principles which underpin and reguilate the subject, educatuing the reader as to the shape of the law. However, critically, it also gives insight into how the system actually works. You cannot understand chess by merely learning the rules - you also have to know how the game is played: so too with Intellectual Property.

To achieve its object the authors deliberately avoid technicalities; keeping things simple, yet direct. There are no footnotes to distract. Although cases are, inevitably, referred to they are explained in a pithy, accessible manner. The authors try wherever possible to be both serious and light-hearted at the same time.

All major areas of IP - patents, trade marks, copyright and designs -are covered, along with briefer treatment of other rights and subjects such as breach of confidence, plant varieties and databases.

A novice reader of this book should come away both with a clear outline of IP law and a feeling for how it works. Students will be able to put their more detailed study into perspective. Users will be able to understand better how IP affects them and their businesses.

The Authors
Sir Robin Jacob is currently the Hugh Laddie Professor of Intellectual Property Law at University College London, having left the Court of Appeal of England and Wales in May 2011. Sir Robin started practice at the Intellectual Property Bar in 1967. From 1976 to 1981 he was the Junior Counsel for the Comptroller of Patents and for all Government departments in intellectual property. He was made a Queen's Counsel in 1981 and was appointed a High Court Judge (Chancery Division) in 1993. He was appointed a Lord Justice of Appeal in October 2003 and continues to sit from time to time in the Court of Appeal and sometimes acts as an arbitrator or mediator.
Daniel Alexander QC is a barrister at 8 New Square Chambers and a Visiting Professor at University College London. His practice covers litigation in intellectual property cases, including IT and media/entertainment cases, competition, EC, commercial and administrative law.
Matthew Fisher is a Senior Lecturer at University College London, where he teaches and researches in intellectual property law. He has a special interest in patents, but stresses that this should not be held against him. He is the author of Fundamentals of Patent Law: Interpretation and Scope of Protection (Hart, 2007), which won the innagural Inner Temple Young Author's Book Prize.

Published September 2013
270pp Pbk 9781849463256
RSP: £19.95 / €26 / US$40 / CDN$40

Order Online
UK, EU, ROW: If you would like to place an order you can do so through the Hart Publishing website here.

US: If you would like to place an order you can do so through the Hart Publishing website here.

Hart Publishing Ltd, 16C Worcester Place, Oxford, OX1 2JW
Telephone Number: 01865 517 530
Fax Number: 01865 510 710
Website: http://www.hartpub.co.uk

Emma Swinden, Marketing Coordinator at Hart Publishing, informs me that the e-book version will be available in a couple of weeks ( more info here).

The book is sitting in my desk - another item for the 'to do' list. Yet, I am always eager to read my favourite topics, trade marks and geographical indications...I of course, did have a peak to these and I can tell you that I was not disappointed - up to date information and cases, even the Greek yoghurt issue.

The material is a nutshell, right to the essence of matters and no distractions with footnotes and further reading. The information is indeed concise, but in a way, is easy to digest.