He specialised in intellectual property law, and was a Junior Counsel to Her Majesty's Treasury (Patents) from 1987 to 1990, and was appointed a QC in 1990.
[4][7] His first instance decision in the case brought by Prince Jefri of Brunei against his accountants KPMG was upheld by the House of Lords after being overturned by the Court of Appeal.
[8] He was a regular speaker at the annual intellectual property conference at Fordham University in New York City, and taught at the Max Planck Institute in Munich.
At least from 1 January 2003 to 21 December 2004, he was a legally qualified external (non-permanent) member of the Enlarged Board of Appeal[9] of the European Patent Office (EPO).
He ruled in Sandman v Panasonic that a single create effort could result in both a literary and artistic copyright, giving the example of a calligraphic poem of a cat.