IPPro The Internet Issue 143

Ireland Insight
The land of saints and scholars
Simon Gray, partner at Tomkins IP and past president of the Irish Association
of Patent and Trade Mark Attorneys, discusses Ireland’s place post-Brexit
Ben Wodecki reports
Do you expect Ireland will become a haven for UK law firms
post-Brexit?
How will Irish intellectual property suffer under Brexit?
The main impact for Ireland is the potential for UK firms moving into
this jurisdiction. We’ve already seen some firms set up in the west of
Ireland, others are setting up practices in Dublin.
We have seen some movement, but so far it is not the avalanche that
people were expecting. The issue is that firms don’t have to be in
Ireland, they can be in any EU country.
So we have seen the firms set up in Amsterdam, Paris and Munich.
There will be an increase in participation in the Irish market by firms
outside of Ireland and that may be a problem. This will have limited
impact on patents, patents will continue on as before, but in the
UK trademarks and designs will be impacted. Any EU trademark or
design registered will no longer be effective in the UK because it will
no longer be a part of the EU system. Anyone who wants to register a
trademark or a design in both the EU and UK are now going to have
to register it separately in both jurisdictions.
Alongside this is the issue of rights of representation in the EU for UK
qualified trademark attorneys.
It is a big commitment to set up an office in a different jurisdiction.
In Ireland, for example, you’ve got to have a proper presence, it’s
not just brass plate on the door, firms will probably have to have a
separate company set up in Ireland and they will have to have an
actual physical presence in Ireland.
Unless firms are willing to do that, it will not be an easy move.
For the bigger firms, there’s always that option, but for the smaller
firms, the expense and the cost of moving to Ireland could be
prohibitive for them in the UK.
12 IPPro The Internet www.ipprotheinternet.com