Patents are restricted to a specific territory and no single patent confers protection for inventions worldwide. However, an international patent application does exist. Filed under the Patent Cooperation Treaty, an international patent application aims to facilitate the procedures for protecting inventions in multiple countries in a cost-effective and insightful way.
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigates aviation, railroad, highway, marine and pipeline accidents to determine their probable cause and issues safety recommendations to reduce the risk of future accidents. This article considers the analytic phase of NTSB investigations, which follows the factual phase.
Party submissions of proposed findings and recommendations
Parties to an NTSB investigation can submit proposed findings and recommendations. The five presidentially-appointed NTSB members review these submissions in conjunction with the draft accident report from the NTSB staff.
NTSB investigations make use of working groups to focus on different aspects of an accident. Each working group comprises a chair from the NTSB, additional NTSB investigators and a representative from each party. These party representatives must have technical expertise in the working group s focus area and cannot be lawyers.
The much-anticipated Energy White Paper was published by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (
BEIS ) on 14 December 2020, setting out its strategy for the UK s energy transition over the next decade. The Energy White Paper focuses on strategy in six key areas: consumers, power, the energy system, buildings, industrial energy and oil & gas.
Much of what has been set out in the Energy White Paper is not new. For one, the Energy White Paper builds on the UK government s Ten Point Plan for a Green Industrial Revolution (the
Ten Point Plan ). However, committing this strategy to a White Paper brings the proposals set out by BEIS one step closer to future legislation.
A new law recently modified the Labour Code, which now provides that employees can claim leave for family reasons if, among other things, they have a child under the age of 13 who must quarantine following a decision or recommendation of the competent national or foreign authority in order to limit the spread of an epidemic. In such circumstances, the employee's absence is justified by a certificate issued by the competent national or foreign authority confirming the decision or recommendation.
Since the beginning of 2021, the government has implemented a raft of additional travel and entry measures to minimise the spread of new COVID-19 variants in the United Kingdom, including pre-departure COVID-19 testing, travel bans, the suspension of travel corridor arrangements and the requirement that visits to the United Kingdom be for an essential purpose. This article outlines the recent developments for travel to England.