The Bar
Learn more
Chambers
Chambers are a very particular English institution. Pleasantly situated on the edge of the City, the legal district in London is more than just addresses from which barristers develop their practice; they are also places with a shared and rich history.
There, individual barristers of different generations grouped together, met with solicitors and received briefs.
Close to the Royal Courts of Justice, patent chambers were traditionally located at the Temple, an enclave which lies between Fleet Street and Embankment and an area that covers two Inns of Court: the Inner and the Middle Temple.
However, the second half of the twentieth century witnessed their move to the two other Inns, Gray’s and Lincoln’s Inn. When the history of the intellectual property bar is written, this move will be one of the most interesting changes to discuss or explain.
A variety of reasons might have triggered it: the increase of tenancy fees in the Temple, the growth of patent chambers and the need to follow the steps of the most prestigious sets.
Clerks
Clerking involved a lot of work, from learning how to bring work into chambers, selecting the appropriate barrister to match a brief, to running the finances of the chambers.
Perhaps the most important role of barrister’s clerks was however their role as a middlemen, being ‘the link by which barristers and solicitors came together’ (Flood, 1981, 378).
While their main task might be described in terms of administering chambers, clerks from previous generations also developed uniquely personal relationships with barristers in chambers, particularly in patent chambers because of the limited amount of barristers practising the field and the high degree of specialisation that characterised it.
The involvement of clerks in the running of chambers also increased in the late 1950s when the Bar Council implemented the rule that those who wanted to become barristers would be required to complete 12 months of pupillage.
Choosing those who would become patent barristers was an informal but challenging task, often predicated on personal connections, Oxbridge references and scientific backgrounds. Of course, there were exceptions to the rule.
Sketches in Court
Sketches in Court: drawings by Sir Kenneth Swan (courtesy of Christopher Morcom, QC).
the bench
After the enactment of the Patents Act (1949), specialist patent judges were appointed from among patent barristers.
The provision that enabled this was contained in section 49 of that Act, making it possible for an additional judge to the High Court to be appointed to deal primarily with patent cases.
The first one was Mr Justice Lloyd Jacob who served until his death in 1969. He was succeeded by Mr Justice Whitford and Mr Justice Graham.
Although the appointment of specialist judges appears to have been received positively, it also attracted controversy due to the idiosyncrasies of some of these figures and the concerns of the ways in which the appeal court dealt with the cases decided in the lower court.
Elevation of the first patent judge, Sir William Aldous, to the Court of Appeal in 1995 was almost as important as the introduction of specialist judges in the High Court.