Time to pay up on time: UK government announce crackdown on late payments to small businesses

By Paul Jinks on July 31, 2025 Posted in Payment Terms, UK

As part of a package of measures detailed in its Small Business Plan released today the UK government has announced plans to tackle late payments to small and medium sized businesses (SMEs) in the UK with the most significant legislative reforms in over 25 years aimed at introducing the toughest laws on late payment in the G7 [Backing your business: our plan for small and medium sized businesses – GOV.UK].

At present the key legislation in the UK is the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998 which provides all businesses with the option to charge interest at 8% over the Bank of England base rate on overdue payments owed by other businesses or public bodies unless an alternative “substantial remedy” for late payment has been agreed. In addition, payment terms in excess of 60 days are open to challenge on the grounds of unfairness with public bodies obliged to offer payment terms not exceeding 30 days.

No holidays for trademarks at risk of becoming generic

By Marion Cavalier on July 25, 2025 Posted in Europe, France, Intellectual Property, IP Litigation, Judiciary, Trademarks

Finally, it’s holiday time and I’m in the south of France on the beach! I am sunbathing in my pretty vintage bikini with a pina colada in my hand. I am hungry. I put on my cargo trousers and go buy a piadina at the snack bar right behind. I use the hotspot to send news to my family. Alas, the connection is really slow… Never mind, I will send a texto, as the locals say.

Did you recognize the trademarks that have become generic in the short text above? There are six of them: Vintage, Pina Colada, Cargo, Piadina, Hot Spot and Texto (the French word for an SMS message).

There is also an intruder: bikini! The two-piece swimsuit was created in 1946 by a Frenchman, Louis Réard, who filed a patent to protect it (he was trained as an engineer). He named it bikini in reference to the atoll of the same name in the Marshall Islands, made famous by American nuclear tests. He was really good at marketing and hoped that this new design would have the effect of an ‘anatomical bomb’, as he put it… This swimsuit, which left the navel exposed, caused such a scandal that it was banned for a time on French, Belgian, Italian and Spanish beaches. In the United States, a song was dedicated to it, ‘Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini’, and a few months later, Dalida’s French version (‘itsi bitsi, petit bikini’) was a tremendous success.

But let’s get back to our legal matters…

UK Information Commissioner opens consultation on its approach to regulating online advertising

By Carlton Daniel on July 16, 2025 Posted in Advertising, Brand Protection, Consumer Law, Cybersecurity, Data Protection, e-Commerce, Social Media, UK, UK Advertising Standards Authority

Last week the UK data privacy regulator, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), announced a consultation [ICO call for views on our approach to regulating online advertising | ICO] on its approach to the enforcement of consent requirements under regulation 6 of the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003 (PECR) [The Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003] trailing potential changes to remove the need for individual consent for some forms of online advertising to support innovation in the adtech space.

Currently advertisers making use of online adtech are required to secure informed consent from individual users as doing so involves the storage of, or access to, information on an individual’s device. The reality is that many in the media space either do not obtain such consent before deploying tracking technologies that are frequently used in ad tech. The reason being that doing so is, from a practical point of view, very difficult. Thankfully, – the ICO is now considering changes which could include the removal of this need for consent where any use of adtech presents a low risk to the privacy of an individual.

UK regulator publishes update on dynamic pricing project and “top tips” for businesses using dynamic pricing

By Carlton Daniel and Paul Jinks on July 11, 2025 Posted in Competition and Markets Authority, UK

In November 2024 the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) announced a project to consider how and when dynamic pricing is being used across different sectors of the UK economy and how that may affect consumers and the wider economy/competition in the UK market [Dynamic pricing project – GOV.UK].

This project is not an enforcement investigation and the CMA has stated it is not being undertaken with the objective of identifying breaches of competition or consumer protection law rather, the aims of the project are to:

support the CMA, government and other stakeholders’ understanding of dynamic pricing and how it can affect consumer outcomes;

help businesses by highlighting how transparency around dynamic pricing can help to support consumer trust, confidence and engagement; and
inform wider consideration by policymakers of the issues associated with dynamic pricing.

On 20 June 2025 the CMA published an update on this project, summarising the key conclusions which it has reached to date [Update: dynamic pricing – GOV.UK] alongside some “top tips” for businesses which make use of dynamic pricing [Tips for businesses using dynamic pricing – GOV.UK].

All Roads Lead to Rome at the USPTO

By Victoria Smith and Frank Bernstein on July 10, 2025 Posted in Intellectual Property, IP Litigation, Patent Litigation, Patents, USPTO

Since the iRhythm IPRs on which we blogged recently, there have been two more (actually, many more) decisions that are leaving petitioners scratching their heads. In Dabico, the Acting USPTO Director discretionarily denied an IPR petition because of “settled expectations,” the same rationale as in iRhythm. The Acting Director went further and criticized the petitioner for not making more arguments against discretionary denial than the patent owner advanced for discretionary denial. In Ericsson, the Acting Director discretionarily denied an IPR petition because the patent owner had dismissed the patent from the underlying litigation.

Petitioners must be feeling whipsawed. iRhythm and other decisions since then, such as Cambridge Industries, penalize petitioners for waiting to be sued on a patent before filing an IPR, even though the petitioner would have had no reason to worry about the patent before being sued. Yet Ericsson penalizes a petitioner for pursuing an IPR on a patent that the petitioner is (no longer) worried about. Petitioners effectively are encouraged to file more IPR petitions, against every potential threatening patent, rather than just the one(s) on which the petitioner is sued. The Acting Director also encourages petitioners to make third-party prior art submissions to the USPTO, creating more work for examiners, rather than reducing their workloads. Dabico piles on petitioners by penalizing them for not anticipating everything the Acting Director might say about discretionary denial, independent of any of the patent owner’s arguments. All the roads that the Acting Director is opening to decrease USPTO workload appear to lead to greater USPTO workload.

What are petitioners to do?

Driving towards the legalisation of fully autonomous vehicles in the UK

By Simon Jones on June 18, 2025 Posted in Artificial Intelligence, Europe, Technology, UK

As many will know, the Autonomous Vehicle Act 2024 (the “AV Act”) paved the way to legalising the use of autonomous vehicles on UK roads. However, before any autonomous vehicles can be used on the UK roads (other than under controlled trials), it is important to be aware that the AV Act does not, at this stage, authorise those vehicles for use on the UK’s roads. Rather, the AV Act grants the Secretary of State the power to authorise this at a later date once the “safety principles” for such usage have been determined.

On 10 June 2025, the Secretary of State launched a call for evidence and consultation on the secondary legislation which will be required to establish these “safety principles”:

The Court Can Wait; The Patent Office Cannot

By Frank Bernstein and Victoria Smith on June 16, 2025 Posted in FDA, Food and Drug Administration, IP Litigation, Patent Litigation, Patents, PTAB, US, USPTO

In a set of astonishing identical Director Review decisions, the Acting USPTO Director discretionarily denied five IPR petitions whose proceedings would have concluded over seven months before the underlying patent infringement suit would have gone to trial. The Acting Director reasoned that the petitioner waited too long to file its IPR petitions because, even though it knew about the patents years earlier, the petitioner waited until after the patent owner sued for infringement to file the petitions. Never mind that the patent owner waited almost as long to sue the petitioner after the petitioner’s products received FDA approval.

European Commission kick starts overhaul of EU telecom law

By Francesco Liberatore on June 16, 2025 Posted in EU Commission, Europe, France, Germany, Spain, Telecoms

“Look, if you had one shot or one opportunity to seize everything you ever wanted in one moment, would you capture it or just let it slip?” asks Eminem in his song “Lose Yourself”. This year might provide just one of those once-in-a-life time opportunities for EU telecom law.

Many stakeholders have been calling for a reform of EU telecom law for some time, venting their frustration at the EU legislature. Earlier this month, finally, the European Commission launched a public call for input on the review of the EU Electronic Communications Code (EECC) and the adoption of a new Digital Networks Act (DNA), which could replace the EECC (and other regulatory instruments) entirely.

UK regulator has fake reviews in its sights

By Carlton Daniel, Paul Jinks and Ailin O'Flaherty on June 11, 2025 Posted in Advertising, Brand Protection, Competition and Markets Authority, Consumer Law, e-Commerce, Intellectual Property, IP Litigation, Marketing, Social Media, Technology, UK

The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 (DMCCA) [Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024] has both increased consumer protection rights in the UK and the enforcement powers of the main consumer regulator, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) which for the first time has been granted wide-ranging powers to investigate suspected breaches of consumer law and unilaterally impose significant fines. Prior to the DMCCA the CMA had to go via the courts for a business to face fines, a power that was exercised infrequently [A New Era for Consumer Law and Regulation | Global IP & Technology Law Blog].

One of the many areas in which the DMCCA has increased and clarified consumer protection rights are fake reviews and reviews which conceal the fact that they have been provided in return for an incentive (whether monetary or otherwise) (banned reviews). The new rules apply to banned reviews however those are made available, whether online or otherwise.

Ad restrictions on HFSS products in the UK to now take effect on 5 January 2026, with voluntary compliance from advertisers and broadcasters from 1 October 2025

By Carlton Daniel, Nicola Smith and Natasha Maric on June 6, 2025 Posted in Advertising, Consumer Law, Intellectual Property, UK

The authors wish to thank Royce Clemente for his contribution to this post.

The UK Government has delayed the implementation of the Advertising (Less Healthy Food Definitions and Exemptions) Regulations 2024 (“Regulations”), which were due to come into force on 1 October 2025, in order to explicitly exempt ‘pure brand’ advertising from the Regulations. The Regulations will now come into force on 5 January 2026. However, despite this delay, advertisers and broadcasters have voluntarily committed to complying with the restrictions from 1 October 2025 (as originally planned).

In a letter addressed to the Government, representatives from the advertising industry stated their commitment not to run ads for specific, identifiable less healthy food or drink products. The letter was signed by key advertising bodies, such as the Advertising Association, ISBA, the IPA and IAB. The letter was also signed by major media organisations and broadcasters, including Channel 4, ITV, Sky and Reach plc, along with the Food and Drink Federation.