The Technology Platform

The High Court has handed down its quantum judgment in the trade mark dispute between the Swatch Group and Samsung, concerning watch face apps. The Swatch Group's expert valued the claim at approximately US$170 million; Samsung's expert valued it at just US$301. However, the court rejected both extremes and awarded "negotiation" damages of US$11.6 million.

Partner and the Head of Technology Group Ashley Williams was quoted in the Financial Times' 'The Big Read' this weekend. Speaking on the risks of AI usage in writing and commercial work.

Welcome to our August 2026 Unified Patent Court update. With the UPC recently passing its third anniversary, in this edition we report on a series of significant Court of Appeal and Local Division decisions addressing: the availability of provisional measures, including the urgency requirement and the treatment of late-stage applications; jurisdictional reach, covering both the UPC's "long-arm" jurisdiction over non-UPC territories and the limits of that reach; and procedural aspects, including the scope of evidence production orders, security for costs for SME claimants, access to pleadings by third parties, opt-outs and calculation of court fees on appeal.

Since 2 August 2026, the EU AI Act has introduced new requirements to make the use of AI more transparent, with advertising a key area directly affected. What does this mean for brands, marketing teams, agencies and their in-house legal advisers?

The UK Jurisdiction Taskforce (UKJT) has now published a final version of its legal statement on liability for AI harms, following a public consultation earlier this year.

The UK Supreme Court has allowed Tesla's appeal in its dispute with InterDigital and Avanci, holding that there is a serious issue to be tried on whether the FRAND obligation applies to SEP owners licensing through pools or platforms, and overturning the decisions of both Fancourt J and the majority of the Court of Appeal.

This article provides an update on recent developments in cybersecurity and operational resilience regulation in both the UK and the EU, covering new incident reporting rules, the first annual report on UK FCA/PRA operational resilience rules, the first annual report on major ICT-related incidents under DORA, and useful insights gleaned from these reports.

Mishcon de Reya has advised legal technology company Ayora on its sale to BigHand.

Mishcon de Reya has advised Pixel-Flo Ltd on its £5.25 million seed funding round, led by Northern Gritstone with additional investment from SCVC, the Parkwalk Northern Universities Venture Fund and HTGF.

The European Commission has published the final version of its Guidelines on the transparency obligations under the EU AI Act, which largely apply from 2 August 2026. This contains a number of important clarifications and updates compared to the draft version issued in May.

Anthropic supports open AI models where risks are limited, but proposes tighter chip export controls, action against large-scale model copying and mandatory safety testing for sufficiently powerful models.