Thomas Anthony Blanco White QC (19 January 1915 – 12 January 2006) was a British

patent A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A p ...

lawyer A lawyer is a person who practices law. The role of a lawyer varies greatly across different legal jurisdictions. A lawyer can be classified as an advocate, attorney, barrister, canon lawyer, civil law notary, counsel, counselor, solic ...

, and an inductee to the IP Hall of Fame in 2010. He was described in his ''Times'' obituary as "the best intellectual property lawyer to have practised in England since Fletcher Moulton" and "cultured, straight-talking lawyer who was without peer on intellectual property issues."

Family

He was the son of the barrister

George Rivers Blanco White George Rivers Blanco White QC (8 May 1883 – 26 March 1966) was an English judge, Recorder of Croydon from 1940–56, and a member of the Special Divorce Commission, from 1948–1957. The son of Thomas and Margaret Elizabeth Blanco White, he was ...

and his wife, the feminist writer, scholar and campaigner

Amber Reeves Amber Blanco White (' Reeves; 1 July 1887 – 26 December 1981) was a New Zealand-born British feminist writer and scholar. Early life Reeves was born in Christchurch, New Zealand, the eldest of three children of Fabian feminist Maud Pember R ...

, daughter of

William Pember Reeves William Pember Reeves (10 February 1857 – 16 May 1932) was a New Zealand politician, cricketer, historian and poet who promoted social reform. Early life and career Reeves's parents were William Reeves, who was a journalist and politician ...

and his wife

Maud Pember Reeves Maud Pember Reeves (24 December 1865 – 13 September 1953) (born Magdalene Stuart Robison) was a suffragist, socialist, feminist, writer and member of the Fabian Society. She spent most of her life in New Zealand and Britain. Early life Re ...

. His sister,

Margaret Justin Blanco White Margaret Justin Blanco White OBE ARIBA (11 December 1911 – 1 November 2001) was a Scottish architect. Early life and education Margaret Justin Blanco White was born at 30 Pembroke Square, Kensington, London, on 11 December 1911. Her father ...

, was an architect, and through her his brother-in-law was the biologist

Conrad Hal Waddington Conrad Hal Waddington (8 November 1905 – 26 September 1975) was a British developmental biologist, paleontologist, geneticist, embryologist and philosopher who laid the foundations for systems biology, epigenetics, and evolutionary devel ...

- their daughters, his nieces are the anthropologist

Caroline Humphrey Caroline Humphrey, Baroness Rees of Ludlow, (''née'' Waddington; born 1 September 1943) is a British anthropologist and academic. Biography Humphrey's father was the biologist Conrad H. Waddington. Her mother was her father's second wife, ar ...

and the mathematician

Dusa McDuff Dusa McDuff FRS CorrFRSE (born 18 October 1945) is an English mathematician who works on symplectic geometry. She was the first recipient of the Ruth Lyttle Satter Prize in Mathematics, was a Noether Lecturer, and is a Fellow of the Royal So ...

Education and early career

He was educated at

University College School ("Slowly but surely") , established = , closed = , type = Public schoolIndependent day school , religion = , president = , head_label = Headmaster , head = Mark Beard , r_head_label = , r_hea ...

and

Gresham's School Gresham's School is a Public school (United Kingdom), public school (English Independent school (United Kingdom), independent Day school, day and boarding school) in Holt, Norfolk, Holt, Norfolk, England, one of the top thirty International Bac ...

, before going to his father's alma mater

Trinity College, Cambridge Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by Henry VIII, King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any college at either Cambridge ...

where he read physics. He was

called to the bar The call to the bar is a legal term of art in most common law jurisdictions where persons must be qualified to be allowed to argue in court on behalf of another party and are then said to have been "called to the bar" or to have received "call to ...

Lincoln's Inn The Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn is one of the four Inns of Court in London to which barristers of England and Wales belong and where they are called to the Bar. (The other three are Middle Temple, Inner Temple and Gray's Inn.) Lincoln ...

in 1937, and served with the

Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve The Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve (RAFVR) was established in 1936 to support the preparedness of the U.K. Royal Air Force in the event of another war. The Air Ministry intended it to form a supplement to the Royal Auxiliary Air Force (RAuxAF ...

from 1940 to 1946 (service No. 80865), working on the then-new field of

radar Radar is a detection system that uses radio waves to determine the distance (''ranging''), angle, and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It can be used to detect aircraft, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor vehicles, w ...

, primarily in

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

and

Ceylon Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...

Legal career

He became a specialist in intellectual property law. He was made

Queen's Counsel In the United Kingdom and in some Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth countries, a King's Counsel (Post-nominal letters, post-nominal initials KC) during the reign of a king, or Queen's Counsel (post-nominal initials QC) during the reign of ...

in 1969.

Publications

His 1962 textbook ''Patents for Inventions'' is regarded as a classic.

Recognition

He was inducted into the IP Hall of Fame in 2010. An intellectual property library in

Delhi Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, primarily its western or right bank, Delhi shares borders w ...

has been named for him.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:White, Thomas Blanco Patent attorneys Members of Lincoln's Inn 1915 births 2006 deaths People educated at University College School People educated at Gresham's School Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge 20th-century English lawyers Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve personnel of World War II Reeves family