2nd August 2016

“Bite-Size” Legal Predictions On Brexit And The Tech Sector (Part 1)

The tech sector will not be heavily affected – there might be a bit of a slowdown whilst uncertainty endures, but the UK and US lead the world on tech innovation and that’s unlikely to change even if a few businesses do relocate (though there’s no evidence yet of that happening in numbers and I don’t believe it will). The tech community is generally very adaptable and agile.
Technology transformation and related projects opportunities are likely to arise from re-locating or restructuring of businesses or parts of them (e.g. move of HQ’s, or speeding up of move into the cloud from perceived need to cut capex).
Whilst there will be a bit of uncertainty, Data Protection laws and planning for the GDPR change is not likely to be significantly affected – the UK will need to stay harmonised on DP law if it wants to continue to do business with Europe. We might see some relaxation of interpretation of the rules in the UK from the ICO where there is scope for that.
On the intellectual property side, as the Brexit picture becomes clearer, we will see some discussion of de-coupling approach as regards EUTMs, Unitary Patent, EU designs etc – in particular whether there will be the need to re-apply for UK registered protection when EU registrations no longer cover the UK.
Technology and Commercial Contracts – there will be a whole range of impacts on existing contract estates. I will shortly publish Part 2 of my Brexit predictions which will cover this topic.

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2nd August 2016