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much a scientist and remembers being taught in the Sixth Form by Ioan Thomas (Biology), Alan Rayden (Chemistry) and Dick ‘Noddy’ Oldfield (as part of a combined Maths and Physics course). He was particularly inspired by Ioan, who was very supportive and helped him to see well beyond A levels. Those doing A levels alongside him included Edward Troup (B 72), another scholar, who would go on to be First Permanent Secretary of HM Revenue and Customs. He also overcame his earlier “indifference” to school discipline, becoming a House Prefect.
Having successfully completed his A levels, David returned in September 1972 to do what was then known as seventh-term Oxbridge. This he described as “great fun”, the level of teaching in particular from Ioan being truly outstanding. He applied to, and was accepted by, Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, to read Natural Sciences but with a biological bent. There was still no interest being shown in Law.
In his second year, David turned up for the open trials for the Cambridge rowing VIII. Much to the upset of the cox of Goldie (the second boat) from the previous year, David was selected to cox the Blue Boat. On 29th March 1975 he coxed Cambridge to victory by 33⁄4 lengths in 19 minutes 27 seconds. Remarkably, despite the victory, David managed to avoid being launched into the Thames by his crew. Quite how, he was not able to explain!
The time taken up with rowing, with long afternoons out on the Fens near Ely, presented quite a challenge, because all the practical work for a natural scientist was scheduled to take place when David was on the river. Despite that, he achieved a 2:1 in part 1 of the Tripos exams, which were taken at the end of the second year. But then David decided to study Law. This meant taking one of the six core subjects during the summer vacation and completing the remaining five in one year. He chose Law because of his interest in it as a subject and because he wanted a broader base, although
at that stage he had no particular thoughts of going to the Bar. But he did not let the study of Law get in the way of enjoyment at Cambridge, playing golf for the Stymies (the Cambridge second team) in his final year, which took up most of his weekends.
It was in the course of this final year that David expressed an interest in becoming a barrister. His Director of Studies arranged for him to have a look at Gray’s Inn, where he was introduced to a then senior junior barrister, Robin Jacob, an intellectual property specialist. As could happen in those days, Robin offered David a pupillage at their very first meeting, which David accepted. However, intellectual property specialist chambers liked their pupils to do a common law pupillage first and so David spent his first sixth months with Daniel Serota, before doing his second six months with Robin. Chambers were small in the 1970s and there were only around 12 members when David joined them at the end of his successful pupillage.
To begin with, David did a lot of ‘soft IP’ – anti-piracy, trademarks, confidential information and branding cases. None of these areas required his scientific background, although that was to come in useful as he began over the years to branch out into ‘hard IP’, in particular the world of patents. Early on, David was instructed to appear for British Steel Corporation against Granada TV, who were in possession of confidential information about BSC’s redundancy plans. David sought an order preventing Granada TV from using this information. He also suggested they ask for an order requiring Granada TV to identify the source of this information. This stirred up a hornets’ nest and within about six months the case was in the House of Lords. Unsurprisingly, both sides wheeled out QCs, so David did not address the Judicial Committee himself. However, the order that David drafted was upheld by the House of Lords, who directed that Granada TV must identify its source. In fact, it never did so and the action settled. The outrage among the press continued and they were able to
bring pressure on the government of the day to bring in legislation swiftly to protect the freedom of the press.
Both as a junior barrister and after being appointed Queen’s Counsel at the very early age of 38, David was involved in many very technical patents cases involving polymers, optical fibres, molecular biology, telecoms, computers and processors. Among the highlights, he acted for J.K. Rowling to stop the unauthorised publication of one of the Harry Potter novels, Penguin against Paul Gascoigne, Pfizer in a case about Viagra and Dyson in its battle with Hoover.
At the age of 50, in 2005, David left the Bar and became a High Court Judge in the Chancery Division. While he still dealt with IP, many of the cases that came before him were spread over a much wider ambit. He found he thoroughly enjoyed this breadth of work and was appointed as the Supervising Chancery Judge for the Midlands, South-West and Wales in 2009, which required him to travel outside London. He was very well regarded by the lawyers in those regional centres.
Elevation to the Court of Appeal followed rapidly, when in 2011 his former pupil master, by now Lord Justice Jacob, decided to retire and an intellectual property specialist judge was needed to replace him. David was appointed and found himself in a new arena, with a new dynamic of sitting with two other Lord or Lady Justices of Appeal, on which he thrived. He was also exposed to yet wider areas of law, including public and family law appeals. His time there even included the odd foray into the Court of Appeal Criminal Division when there was a technical aspect to the appeal. One of his highlights from that jurisdiction was the case of R v T, which focused on whether it was appropriate to use Bayesian reasoning to work out probabilities in a criminal context.
While he was in the Court of Appeal, I had the pleasure of appearing before him. He was meticulously prepared, remained as charming as ever, with no hint of pomposity or arrogance, listened
FEATURE
THE OLD OUNDELIAN 2018 –2019
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