Nicholas Fernandes

Senior Lawyer at Department for Business and Trade

Speaker

Nicholas is a barrister employed as Senior Lawyer in the Government Legal Department where he currently advises the Department for Business and Trade on the intellectual property aspects of international trade agreements. In his government legal career spanning three decades, over two of which were as a legal adviser to the Intellectual Property Office (UKIPO), he has advised the UK on EU and international negotiations on intellectual property law, including the intellectual property chapters of Free Trade Agreements. He was invited to give a presentation to the Delhi Judicial Academy on the enforcement of intellectual property rights. He has also drafted statutory instruments and worked on Acts of Parliament on various aspects of intellectual property law, including implementation of EU legislation. As departmental lawyer, Nicholas has advised the UK, as a former member state of the EU, on a number of direct interventions and preliminary references before the Court of Justice of the EU in intellectual property cases.

During the Covid-19 crisis, Nicholas was one of a team of lawyers advising the Vaccines Task Force on procurement and commercial aspects of intellectual property in relation to the purchase and supply of vaccines.

He has also advised the UK Space Agency on the law of outer space and has given a presentation on space law and intellectual property. He has attended the UN Committee on Peaceful Uses of Outer Space as legal adviser to the UK delegation. He was invited to Colorado Springs, USA, to speak on a panel about international legal aspects of Planetary Defence (protection of the Earth from asteroids). Nicholas has contributed to a paper on “Planetary Defence Legal Overview and Assessment” as a member of the ad hoc working group on legal issues to the Space Mission Planning Advisory Group endorsed by the UN.