When ordinary activities like using Wi-Fi in a coffee shop or updating smartphone apps provokes lawsuits you know something is seriously amiss with the legal system. That has been the state of play for some time in the US – but perhaps not for much longer. Recently US president Barack Obama announced a series of measures that he hopes will ...
Legislation & Skills
Electronics patent of the month: Radio tracking of hospital assets
GB Patent Number: 2483006 Granted to: Awarepoint Corporation I was really quite shocked last week when listening to a news report about ‘never events’. These are serious surgical blunders which are preventable and should never have happened. Examples of such ‘never events’ include operating on the wrong body part and leaving instruments in a patient after surgery, the latter of ...
UK regulator reveals plans for white space radio
White space technologies could potentially be launched in the UK towards the end of 2013, says Ed Richards, Ofcom chief executive
Comment: Intel, ARM – Are we on the brink of another tablet patent war?
It seems that hardly another day goes by without another global consumer electronics giant filing a patent lawsuit against another, writes Alan MacDougall, a Chartered Patent Attorney and partner at IP advisers Mathys & Squire LLP.
Comment: A shorter commercial lifespan is no reason not to patent
Small and medium-sized businesses should not let an expectation that their invention will have a limited commercial lifespan stop them from obtaining patent protection and benefiting from tax relief linked to the incoming Patent Box.
RoHS recast is coming, the medical market prepares
Guest columnist Peter Winnington-Ingram, senior site director at Plexus, looks at the impact the recently adopted RoHS 2.0 EU Directive will have on the development of medical systems
WEEE: what are firms’ legal responsibilities on waste
Henar Dyson, a solicitor at law firm, Thomson Snell & Passmore, outlines the legal obligations of firms in conforming to the WEEE Directive on the disposal of electronic products and packaging waste
Comment: GPS chips track afterlife of electronic waste
Is it real or wilful ignorance that permits us to foul our own planet with Styrofoam cups and rusted batteries? Would we curb our wasteful activities if only we knew the error of our ways? Technophiles from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology think so, and to equip the public with the knowledge we need to change our behaviour they've tagged our technological trash with GPS chips and tracked it across the globe. "Some trash is recycled, some is thrown away, some ends up where it shouldn't end up," says Carlo Ratti, director of the MIT Senseable City Lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Court date set for UK’s biggest e-waste investigation
A court date has been set for the UK's largest ever investigation into the illegal exportation of e-waste.
CMA criticises Ofcom’s 4G auction process, Ofcom responds
Ofcom's proposed auction of so-called 4G spectrum ignores crucial consumer interests in price, quality of service (QoS), timescale and coverage in favour of revenue, the Communications Management Association (CMA) says.