Richard Meade moves to UK Court of Appeal

The British government has just announced that seven judges have been promoted to the Court of Appeal. One of them is Richard Meade. He has left his mark on the UK patent courts.

At the UK Court of Appeal, Meade will now work alongside Richard Arnold and Colin Birss in patent cases. Birss was appointed as the new Chancellor of the High Court in November 2025. Birss will continue to hear cases both as a senior judge in the Court of Appeal and at first instance in the Chancery Division of the High Court. Due to the administrative tasks, Birss already hears fewer cases. Richard Meade could now fill this gap, but Court of Appeal judges usually hear cases in a wide range of legal fields.

A senior KC told JUVE Patent that Richard Meade’s promotion was richly deserved. “He has contributed much to the efficient running of the UK patents court since his appointment and has maintained its reputation across the world. He embodies the highest standards of the UK judiciary, which will no doubt continue in the Court of Appeal and perhaps beyond.”

Patent specialist with commercial roots

Meade was called to the Bar at Lincoln’s Inn in 1991, having started his career in IT following his studies at Oxford University. He joined the specialist IP set 8 New Square, where he trained under former Supreme Court Justice David Kitchin and built a practice focused on commercial work and intellectual property law.

Meade took silk in 2008 and was appointed Recorder in 2009. He served as a deputy high court judge from 2011 before being appointed full-time in September 2020. He was also appointed Chair of the Competition Appeal Tribunal in the same year. As Judge in Charge of the Patents Court, Meade has played a central role in shaping procedure in some of the most heavily disputed areas of patent litigation.

Early on in his career as a judge, disputes in the life sciences sector took centre stage. These have included Moderna vs BioNTech and Pfizer over mRNA vaccines and the apixaban battle between Sandoz, Teva, and Bristol-Myers Squibb. Mobile communications and FRAND battles, which also featured frequently, were usually settled early on. In those early years, Meade rarely published FRAND and SEP judgments.

This changed significantly over time. Meade was most recently involved in the disputes between Samsung and ZTE over 4G and 5G patents, as well as Huawei vs TP-Link, and InterDigital vs Amazon. All three cases involved the setting of a FRAND rate by the UK High Court. Since September 2025, the dispute between InterDigital and Amazon has escalated into a jurisdictional conflict between the UK High Court and the Unified Patent Court. Meade played a central role in the legal discussion with continental European judges.

The race for the successor is on

According to sources, a successor to Meade has not yet been appointed. However, insiders say an intensive search for suitable candidates is already underway in London. Like Richard Meade and James Mellor, they are likely to come from the circle of barristers specialising in IP. Five years ago, when the nomination of the two new judges was pending, many London patent experts had called for a woman to be appointed as patent judge for the first time.