For the last few months, we’ve been working with the trademark practice at Mischon de Reya , getting ready to launch the new version of LawPanel. It’s currently in private beta, and we’re very excited about releasing it to the public later this Summer.   It’s been a real privilege to have so much feedback from such a well-respected practice. One of the most rewarding things about our time on the MDR Lab programme has been observing the real-life implications of IP management software for those who spend so much of their day using it.   The problem with technologists is that we tend to talk in our own private jargon. We’re passionate about what LawPanel can achieve within the sector, but even we spend too much time talking about APIs and dynamic programming and not enough explaining what all this means for the user.   With that in mind, we wanted to explain some of the practical results of our approach, and how LawPanel will help change the working ...

Historically speaking, being a woman in the legal sector has not been easy. In fact, it’s only a little over a 100 years since women have had access to the profession at all. Due to this, it comes as no surprise that the top ranks in today’s legal sector are dominated by men .   And yet, the majority of Law students in the UK are women, with the figure reaching 67% in 2017 . Theoretically, this should mean the old gender imbalance at the top of legal sector is on its way out.   The problem is that while many women enter the Law, a disproportionately small number ever reach those positions of seniority, with only 33% of partners being women as of 2017 .   Of course, there are many reasons for this disparity. Nevertheless, one of the culprits is glaringly obvious.   Put simply, the work culture in the legal sector, especially among large law firms, is keeping women from realizing their full potential.   For trainees, this comes as no surprise. ...

 At LawPanel we have an interest in AI: both in what it can usefully do now in the applications we build, but also in what it might enable in the future.   There’s been a couple of interesting articles in recent months on the ‘black box’ nature of AI. The  New York Times opined that the black box of AI is ‘nothing to fear’ , to be followed by the Economist saying that before AI is widely adopted it must explain itself. Like some self-replicating form, these articles then spawned others. So here I give life to another, but somewhat contrarian view.   These and the articles I’ve seen take a curate’s egg view of AI. Yes it’s all very nice this AI coming over here and taking the jobs that are mundane and repetitive, but the moment it begins to make decisions that really matter, such as those with social impact it’s a different matter. That’s when the bien pensant demand the AI explain itself. And to stand up straight with its socks pulled up whilst doing...

 This week, Thomas Brattli, our CTO, talked to Tim Lince of the World Trademark Review about registries, APIs, and the philosophy of open data. It’s an important topic, and one we feel strongly about at LawPanel.   You can read the full article here