Sir Hugh Laddie QC

Sir Hugh Laddie was a great friend of Fordham’s Intellectual Property Law & Policy Conference, and we were deeply saddened when he passed away this past November. Our 2009 Conference began with this tribute to Sir Hugh by the Rt. Honorable Lord Justice Jacob:

Remembrance of Hugh Laddie

by Robin Jacob

              Before this, the 17th Fordham IP conference, gets under way, it is right that we should all remember one of its great contributors – the late Hugh Laddie, formerly Mr. Justice Laddie who died last November.   Many of you will have known him personally, others will have seen him perform at Fordham and other conferences and nearly everyone else will at least have read his writings and judgments.

              It is just under half a year since Hugh died.   Many of us are still struggling to cope without him.  If you were to ask me what I miss most about him, I would give different answers at different times.   His enormous sense of fun perhaps comes first to mind.  Never was he without a current joke.   But then his insight seems more important – you could always ask him for advice and the answer would be quick and perceptive.  Then his giant sense of justice takes over.   It is followed by his love of humanity – of all nations and races.   And perhaps finally that gives way to his wisdom.

              That wisdom was extraordinary – his support for good IP and hostility to bad – including over extensive – IP was passionate.  As you all will know in the 1990s and early 200s the great pendulum of IP law swung far out in favour of protectionism.   Hugh was one of the first to see that it was swinging too far.  He spoke out against it – including at this conference.  I remember his return from one saying “they are all mad – they think IP law can solve everything so there should be a lot more of it.”  Today the pendulum is visibly swinging back – as Hugh’s wisdom saw that it should.   What he had to say about IP will remain a constant guide to rational IP law and its rational and balanced interpretation.   In IP his works will live on.   And, through the close and warm family that he had and put first in his life, he will live on in what he gave to them.

              He would, of course, have been at this conference – in his old University town.   The Conference will be that much less alive without him.   We can but mourn his passing.  Would you all please stand for a minute so we can all remember him together.

University College London, where Sir Hugh was a chair professor and founded the Institute for Brand and Innovation Law, has created a site where people may post remembrances, which you can visit here.  In light of Sir Hugh’s connection to the Fordham IP Conference, UCL has asked us to post a link to this site so that those who knew him from past Fordham conferences might also post messages and read those of Sir Hugh’s many friends.