WELCOME AND INTRODUCTORY REMARKS

Professor Malcom Grant Good evening. My name is Malcolm Grant. I am the President and Provost of UCL. It is my very great pleasure to welcome everybody here tonight for the 2010 Hugh Laddie lecture. It is a year since I stood here last and welcomed many of the people in tonight's audience to the first Hugh Laddie lecture, which you may recall was delivered by Lord Hoffmann in a session chaired by Lord Neuberger. It is a very great pleasure to welcome everybody back tonight.

We are remembering Hugh Laddie, who made such an enormous contribution to the development of intellectual property law as a barrister, a judge and as an academic. He was an outstanding professor of intellectual property law at UCL. In many ways he found his true vocation in dealing with students and understanding how he could develop the understanding of intellectual property law as a professor.

Last year I announced that we would be establishing a fund to create at UCL a professorship of intellectual property law in Hugh Laddie's memory. I announced that we had received a most generous contribution to that fund from Sir Maurice Hatter, who is with us this evening. With that kick-start, the fund has grown significantly; indeed, it has more than doubled. With that support, the faculty has been minded to make an appointment to the Sir Hugh Laddie Chair of Intellectual Property Law at UCL. It gives me enormous pleasure tonight to announce that the new professor will be Sir Robin Jacob, presently of the Court of Appeal, a lifetime colleague of Sir Hugh Laddie and a phenomenal contributor to the development of intellectual property law in this country. He requires some time still in the Court of Appeal, but with the consent of Lord Neuberger as the Director of Civil Justice, he will be in a position to take up his appointment next Easter. Tomorrow evening in this room we will confer an honorary degree on Lord Neuberger, but these two events are (Laughter) completely unconnected. It gives me enormous pleasure to recognise tonight Robin Jacob, who is with us, and to ask you, please, to join with me in congratulating him on his election to the Hugh Laddie Chair.