Friday fantasies

tytoc collie team takes this opportunity to wish everyone a good Friday, or a good Good Friday, depending on their preferences.  Oh, and don't forget to check the Forthcoming Events page, will you ...?

Crown copyright: another
great British invention ...

Earlier this week, in "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet ... IPO search for Latin lovers?" (here), tytoc collie reported on the beta version of Ipsum, the UK Intellectual Property Office (IPO) system for inspecting patent documents online. There has been some discussion, and some misunderstanding, regarding the non-availability of documents generated by third parties.  tytoc collie can clarify the position as follows:

* The beta version of Ipsum currently online includes documents in which there is Crown copyright, but not documents in which it does not hold the copyright.  There is however a Consultation on Amending the Patents Act to provide for online patent document inspection here. The proposal is that the Patents Act 1977 be amended to provide for a relevant exception to copyright which would let the IPO introduce online inspection services for documents sent to it but in which it does not own the copyright. If you think this is a good idea, you can tell the IPO by email to this address by Tuesday 26 April. There's not much time to act, so please get a move on! 

* the name Ipsum represents “the sum of information on patents”. In Latin means "the very thing itself". This is a nod to the Latin origin of the word “patent” and the fact that the service allows users to see the very documents themselves [so long as there's no copyright issue ...].

tytoc collie has also heard that someone down in the Land of the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) has taken an interest in Ipsum, which has already been linked from WIPO's very own Patentscope "Gateway to patent services and activities". According to tytoc collie's reliable source,

"For all international applications where we’ve had a notification of entry into the GB national phase, there is now a link from the “national phase” tab of WIPO’s Patentscope PCT publications and public file inspection database to the national phase details for that application. See, for example here.  We also provide similar links for other Offices where we have the necessary information to link directly to the relevant systems for other national phases. We hope that the coverage will further increase soon".

Patent cliff ...

...copyright Cliff

Around the weblogs. The 25th in PatLit's PCC Pages series, posted here, deals with some of the issues involving the transfer of proceedings between the cheap and cheerful Patents County Court for England and Wales and the not-so-cheap but increasingly cheerful Patents Court. IP Finance carries another insightful piece from fellow Kat Neil J. Wilkof, "What To Do in the Face of a Patent Cliff: A View from Medium Pharma", here, with coda here, which is well worth thinking about. Afro-IP asks whether the emergence of South Africa's Office of Companies and Intellectual Property Enforcement (OCIPE) is a positive step or not much more than a rebranding exercise, while in IP Tango Patricia Covarrubia reports that Mexico is the latest jurisdiction to lament the ill effects of piracy and smuggling on its economy (of which these activities are estimated to account for some 30%).

Looking for something to read this weekend? The Annual Report of the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market (OHIM) for 2010 is now available online from OHIM here.  According to sources close to the throne,

"... The report reflects the Office’s wide range of cooperation activities, and has been prepared in the form of a website, making extensive use of video and graphics in an effort to make it appealing to a wide cross-section of the public. 

As well as the usual range of statistics, the report includes a six-minute video summary, a video message from the President, and interviews with senior staff and many of our stakeholders including national IP offices and user representatives. 

This year’s report celebrates the cooperation between OHIM and all our stakeholders in trying to make the IP system work better. In particular it charts the progress being made in partnership with them on Cooperation Fund projects, which is designed to deliver common tools and standards that will shape the future of IP in Europe for the next decade".

For those who like to be reassured that there is always someone working harder than themselves, this month's new reading matter also includes The Workload of the Court of Justice of the European Union, here.

Friday fantasies

Friday is Forthcoming Events Day!  Please remember to check out tytoc collie's  Forthcoming Events page for details of all those exciting conferences, seminars. speeches ...

Huffington Puffington ...

"Huffington Post Is Target of Suit on Behalf of Bloggers" is the title of this piece, which a number of readers have kindly forwarded to tytoc collie.  The excitement is all about the multi-million dollar lawsuit filed in a United States District Court in New York earlier this week on behalf of "thousands of uncompensated bloggers". Led by Working Life blogger Jonathan Tasini, the 9,000+ bloggers seeks at least $105 million in damages in an action which raises significant unsettled questions about the rights of writers in the digital age. Tasini is quoted as saying:

“The Huffington bloggers have essentially been turned into modern-day slaves on Arianna Huffington’s plantation. It’s very important to understand the hypocrisy here. We are going to make Arianna Huffington a pariah in the progressive community.”

The Huffington Post has become an attractive target for people seeking compensation for unpaid blogging after AOL purchased the site for $315 million earlier this year in a deal which "enriched Ms Huffington and many of her business partners, much to the dismay of people who had worked for the site when it was just a start-up".  This old Kat met Arianna in their student days when she was active in the Cambridge Union; he suspects that she is one of the few people upon which he failed to make any impression whatsoever.

A question of distance.  A reader has emailed tytoc collie to ask: "I am interested to locate an online distance learning module especially for the Asian market. Can you please advise? Many thanks".  The Kat isn't so familiar with such models that he can confidently recommend any, but he thinks he has some readers who may be able to help him.  Can you?

No room at the top for Room at the Top?  tytoc collie thanks his many readers who sent him this link to the news that a new BBC dramaticisation of John Braine's classic 1950s novel, Room at the Top, has been pulled following the sudden discovery of an unspecified but definitely embarrassing copyright problem.  tytoc collie is naturally sympathetic to not only the programme's producers and cast but also to the great British viewing public which will be deprived of the chance to meet one of the least pleasant characters in British postwar fiction, Joe Lampton.  However, he couldn't resist the chance to comment that pulling this programme is a no-Brainer ...  Merpel adds, there might be an orphan work issue, seeing as Joe Lampton was an orphan.

Plant varieties for which
Macedonia is best known?

WIPO has been busy again.  A media release ("Madrid (Marks) Notification No. 191: Protocol Relating to the Madrid Agreement Concerning the International Registration of Marks") reliably informs tytoc collie that, possibly following some horse-trading over its financial contributions, the Republic of Tajikistan is taking its rightful place among the Madrid Protocol nations with effect from 30 June 2011.  And that's not all. According to another media release ("UPOV Notification No. 110: International Convention for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants") the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia will be a UPOV-friendly jurisdiction with effect from 4 May 2011 -- also following some financial adjustments with regard to its membership of the international plant varieties community.  With World IP Day coming up in little over a week, can we expect more dramatic diplomatic moves, asks Merpel?


The May 2011 INTA Special issue of the Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice (JIPLP) is now available online. You can read the editorial here in full.

Friday fantasies

Forthcoming events. Don't you just love them? The thrill of that brief encounter with a new IP proposition. The frisson of that free coffee which comes with your registration fee.  The fond farewells after the chairman's closing speech. The chance to get home earlier because your colleagues back in the office didn't notice how early the talk was scheduled to finish ... Never mind, just check here and see if anything takes your fancy. 


Darfurnica: the readers speak. tytoc collie was most surprised at the outcome of his recent poll, on the balance between brand protection and freedom of expression.  For the benefit of (i) new readers and (ii) old ones with amnesia, the picture depicted here is contentious because uxury brand owner Louis Vuitton has objected to the use of one of its registered designs on the handbag of the malnourished child (to see the artwork more closely, click here). tytoc collie ran a poll this week in order to ascertain whether his readers believe that the interests of the IP owner in maintaining control of its iconic IP and in resisting the effect of unauthorised uses should take precedence over the artist's right of freedom of expression in seeking to evoke the powerful message of iconic IP when making a political, cultural or social point.  The responses -- drawn from 298 voters -- were as follows:

• IP must be protected --pictures like Darfurnica can destroy years of expensive marketing and damage goodwill 6 (2%)
  
• Each case should be decided on its own facts -- you can't make one rule in advance of all possible situations 143 (47%)
  
• Freedom of expression must prevail, since it is a fundamental requirement of modern society 149 (50%)

The Kat had assumed that, since this weblog is a relatively IP-friendly medium, there would have been more sabre-rattling from the militant enforcement folk. In fact, there is a preponderant pro-freedom of expression sentiment in that while half think freedom of expression should trump IP all the time, almost all the other half think it should trump IP where it can be justified on the facts.

Around the blogs. Run by Dannemann Siemsen Advogados' duo of Attilio Gorini and Rodrigo Borges Carneiro, Entertainment Law Brazil is just celebrating its first birthday. Happy birthday, says tytoc collie, who hopes that IP Tango -- which is not currently linked to this lovely blog and which will be three this June-- will also be invited to the party. Now, moving from parties to patents, there's a bouncy guest article on PatLit this week from a blogospheric debutante, Michelle Umansky, which really opens up the state of US law on "patent marking" for us puzzled Europeans.  Another guest this week, though no stranger to the social media, is Emily Goodhand (@copyrightgirl, as she is known on Twitter and author of the Copyright for Education weblog).  Hosted by the 1709 Blog, Emily shares some thoughts on life after the Google non-settlement, here.


Advance notice: IPKat team member plans to be at The Old Nick this Tuesday, 12 April, from 5.15pm to 6.30pm. Anyone who likes talking about IP with fellow enthusiasts is welcome. No need to RSVP.

Friday fantasies

As usual, tytoc collie reminds readers of his Forthcoming Events page, which is replete with delicious seminars, lectures, conferences and other excuses for a get-together. Do remember to check them out!

Among next week's events are two in which tytoc collie has had a hand. One -- at the crack of dawn on Monday morning -- is a chance to share a breakfast with the early-rising Head of the United States Patent and Trademark Office, David Kappos (details here). The other, congenially timed for Tuesday afternoon, is the MARQUES Class 46 weblog's rapid response seminar on Future Plans, which looks at the recently-published study on trade marks in Europe (details here).

There are only a couple of days to go before the poll closes on IP v freedom of expression (a.k.a. Louis Vuitton v Nadia Plesner).  You can find the poll at the top lef-hand corner of your screen if you visit tytoc collie's front page -- it's at the top of the side bar.




Moussa Koussa -- whatever you may think of the man himself, it can't be denied the name has wonderful potential for a brand.  It rhymes, it rolls off the tongue easily, it has an attractive beat.  Would it be a hair preparation, perhaps, or a food product -- or even an up-market tag for fashion goods and accessories?  Readers' suggestions are welcomed, as ever.

If you ever wanted to know what the Court of Justice of the European Union actually does, you might want to take a look at the 2010 Provisional [and therefore presumably non-authentic] Version of the Curia annual report.  This document provides some handy extracts: a synopsis of the case-law of the Court of Justice, the General Court and the Civil Service Tribunal, together with loads of statistical information concerning their judicial activity. The full version of the report -- to which no link is provided -- contains in addition the members' curricula vitae [handy if you're thinking of (i) recruiting, (ii) bribing or (iii) challenging them], orders of precedence [shouldn't this item have come first?] and a summary of the institution's ancillary activities (judges' forums, judicial study visits, official visits, information visits, seminars, cocktail receptions, parties and so forth).

Now that the main event of the month -- April Fools' Day -- has passed, tytoc collie respectfully reminds readers that another major event remains, in the form of World Intellectual Property Day on 26 April.  The Law Society of Scotland is holding its own WIPD event five days earlier, to beat the rush. If you fancy attending, the brochure with all the details is here. If you're squeamish about eating Scottish delivacies, don't worry. Haggis is not on the menu; to satisfy the demands of the vegetarian lobby, you can sample another notorious Scottish gastronomical invention: the deep-fried Mars bar ...

Obama: more popular than local
politicians in the Emerald Isle?

tytoc collie has received a solemn guarantee from the ever-credible Niamh Hall (FRKelly) that celebrations in Ireland have already begun in advance of United States President Obama's visit to the Republic this May.  The President's itinerary may well include a visit to Moneygall, Co. Offaly, where President Obama's great x 4 grandfather was a shoemaker. Recent trade mark applications filed in the Irish Patents Office include O'BAMA Irish Coffee Stout (No. 2011/00532), O'Bama Celebration Stout (No. 2011/00527) and O'BAMA MONEYGALL STOUT (No. 2011/00530). Anyone for an Obama-tini?  Says tytoc collie, it is highly important to get your US President-related trade mark strategy right: remember how BILLCLINTON was refused registration as a Community trade mark?


Mark your diaries for next week: there's an interesting-looking reference for a preliminary ruling by the Court of Justice in Europe from the Hoge Raad der Nederlanden in Case C-406/09 Realchemie Nederland BV v Bayer CropScience AG. The questions referred by the top Dutch court are these:

"1. Is the phrase 'civil and commercial matters' in Article 1 of Regulation ...44/2001 on jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments ... to be interpreted in such a way that this regulation applies also to the recognition and enforcement of an order for payment of 'Ordnungsgeld' (an administrative fine) pursuant to ... the German Code of Civil Procedure (Zivilprozessordnung)?

2. Is Article 14 of Directive 2004/48 on the enforcement of intellectual property rights to be interpreted as applying also to enforcement proceedings relating to
(i) an order made in another Member State concerning an infringement of intellectual property rights;
(ii) an order made in another Member State imposing a penalty or fine for breach of an injunction against infringement of intellectual property rights;
(iii) costs determination orders made in another Member State on the basis of the orders referred to at (i) and (ii) above?

tytoc collie and Merpel know the answers, of course, but will wait till next week to see whether the Advocate General's Opinion is correct before they say anything, since they wouldn't want to be thought of as influencing the court.

Party time. Today the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market, Alicante, is having a party to celebrate the 15th anniversary of the filing of the first Community trade mark applications. When OHIM's doors metaphorically opened on 1 April 1996, they were hit by around 21,000 CTM applications -- well in excess of the projected demand for the full year.  tytoc collie recalls that the organisation didn't have enough fax machines to cope and had to use the facilities of the local newsagent too.  Anyway, the past decade and a half have seen almost 320,000 applicants from 190 countries make 940,000 CTM applications, of which more than 713,000 have been registered [Merpel is curious to know how many of the applications made on 1 April 1996 are still in the pipeline.  Does anyone have a figure?].  This Kat may be wrong, but he has a vague recollection that 1 April 1996 was also the commencement date for the Madrid Protocol -- another success story, though you wouldn't think so to listen at everyone moaning about it.   Happy birthdays all round, say the Kats!

Friday fantasies

Please remember to check out tytoc collie's fabled, fascinating and fulfilling Forthcoming Events list -- there's something there for (almost) everyone!

"Future Plans". The forthcoming MARQUES Class 46 seminar to review and discuss the Study on the Overall Functioning of the European Trade Mark System which the European Commission commissioned from the Max Planck Institute will definitely be packed to the rafters.  This event, which is free and carries 2.5 CPD points, takes place on the afternoon of Tuesday 5 April.  When the registration list is full, which should happen some time in the next few hours, a reserve list will be opened so that any gaps left by cancellations can be swiftly filled.  European trade mark organisation MARQUES has set up an online registration system -- you can check the programme and register here.  See you there?

Blog seeks logo -- can you help?  Since its inception the 1709 Blog, which covers all sorts of copyright issues, hasn't had its own logo but has simply made do with the portrait of Queen Anne, the monarch in whose reign the first British copyright legislation was passed.  But now the team feels it's time for a change.  The blog's appearance will shortly be refreshed by the adoption of a new template and, to commemorate this auspicious event, a brand new logo is sought.  A prize, in the form of a copy of International Copyright by Paul Goldstein and Bernt Hugenholtz, will go to the best effort received by midnight on Sunday 3 April.  Please send your entry to Jeremy here with the subject line "1709 logo", and remember to let the blog have an irrevocable non-exclusive licence to use it on the blog and for its promotions ...

"Sales are very small"
(para.193)

In "Too Fast to Live, Too Young to Die, Too Long to Read ..." tytoc collie made a few observations about the Patents County Court ruling in Dame Vivienne Westwood v Anthony Edward Knight, the first time that court has been able to run a case under its exciting new procedures.  The Kat was so keen to write on it that he posted his piece before the judgment had been made generally available on the excellent BAILII database.  Well, the decision is now well and truly BAILII'd and you can access it, at no cost and scarcely any inconvenience, here.

"Bye Bye Blackbird" is the name of a classically popular song, but it was it was the departure of a bird of a different feather that was warmly and congenially celebrated earlier this week in the Royal Courts of Justice.  Taking his leave of the Court, Sir Robin Jacob is now making the short migratory flight north to University College London's IBIL -- where we all wish him luck.


A couple of patent-y things:  PatLit has now produced a list of the first 20 in the series of PCC Pages on the Patents County Court in England and Wales.  The SPC Blog has recently posted a series of features on litigation around Europe over patent and supplementary protection certificate protection within the context of Valsartan, which is almost as good at treating high blood pressure as litigation against Novartis is as a means of inducing it in the first place.  You can check the blog out here.

"Unreliable Evidence" is coming to a radio near you next Wednesday, 30 March, from 8 to 8.45pm. The subject is "Intellectual Property".  The details: "Clive Anderson and some of the country's top lawyers and judges discuss legal issues of the day. The second programme in the series looks at the law and intellectual property. Humans are an extraordinarily creative species, but can't always agree about the legal rights relating to that creativity. This programme looks at how our courts attempt to resolve disputes over trade marks, inventions, music and literature; in fact over everything from life-saving drugs to sweater designs. Do our copyright, patent and other laws create the right balance between the protection of entrepreneurship and the potential benefit to the public of less regulated distribution of our creative output?" If you think this programme is going to give you an answer, don't forget to tune in to Radio 4.

Looking for a job?  EPSO is organising open competitions to select administrators in six fields: European public administration, law, economics, audit, finance, statistics.  What? You haven't heard of EPSO?  Er, nor has tytoc collie, but he now knows that the acronym stands for "European Personnel Selection Office" and not, as Merpel had erroneously hypothesised,  Extraordinarily Profligate Salaries Offered ...

Never underestimate the
curative value of hops when
it comes to treating
"alements"

Another update on the currently quickly changing face of Australian patent law comes from tytoc collie's friend Anna Feros (Shepherd & Wedderburn).  She tells the Kat:

"By the end of 2011, the Australian Government will introduce legislation to allow the Federal Court to grant compulsory licences to manufacture and export patented pharmaceuticals to countries trying to deal with epidemics and other types of health crises.

The new system implements an international agreement on public health in the World Trade Organization, amending the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (the TRIPS Protocol). The only country to have notified that such a compulsory licence has been granted to export to date is Canada in 2007".

Friday fantasies

There are so many Forthcoming Events on tytoc collie's list that even he can't keep up with them.  Do check them out!

In all due modesty, tytoc collie was thrilled to be listed in The Times Online yesterday as a "Best Legal Blog" in the UK.  Sadly, since this feature lives behind a paywall, he can't throw you a link to it, but what made him really happy is that a weblog that covers a niche subject like intellectual property can be spotted and given some recognition even when compared with blogs that cover far more general -- and popular -- topics.  Merpel adds, a big thanks is owed as usual to tytoc collie's readers, whose questions and comments have done so much to add spice to the Kats' offerings.

Are you an author in search of a subject to write about?  If so, here's a fresh list of intellectual property-related subjects for which the Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice (JIPLP) is seeking articles. This list reflects at least in part the hopes of readers and subscribers, so you can be sure that if it's published in JIPLP, someone other than you, the editor and the proof reader is likely to read it. If none of the articles listed here appeals to you, JIPLP is always ready to negotiate ...

The world's response to scam sites?  Right now, an
elite squad of hand-picked tortoises is being trained
to pursue the perpetrators ...

Demands for payments reach Galapagos.  This is not a reference to the volcanic archipelago from which, from time to time, there is an eruption of giant tortoises, but rather to the fact that tytoc collie is grateful to Maria Nichol (Galapagos NV) for drawing his attention to the firm and formal-looking demands of ECTO SA for payment in respect of a trade mark renewal (you can see for yourself here).  Since the MARQUES Class 46 weblog posted on its most recent list of websites that give warnings about unwarranted demands for payments for services and directory entries, another three countries have emerged as providing information for IP owners and their advisors -- the Czech and Slovak Republics, followed by Ireland.  tytoc collie is upset that there is still too little warning information available.  Merpel wants to know why, when almost every day there seems to be a new research project on the cost of patents or their impact on the economy, no-one seems yet to be commissioning or carrying out any research into the impact and effect of these parasites on the IP system.  Well, what are we waiting for?

Who wants to see court documents anyway? Who cares?  "Open justice and access to documents: can the Patents Court lead the way?" is the title of a thought-provoking piece hosted on PatLit here, which attacks the current archaic manner in which court documents must be sought in the internet age -- but which offers hope that some progressive thinking, and a lesson or two from the United States' experience of PACER, can improve the information environment.

If you're interested in the way that the press use (or abuse) the statutory exceptions and defences to copyright infringement when helping themselves to works generated by third parties, you've got something in common with talented young Polish lawyer Grzegorz Pacek, who is writing a PhD on this very topic under the auspices of the Jagiellonian University in Cracow.  Though he is mainly focusing on Polish law, he'd like to hear from people in other jurisdictions who have interesting insights, war stories etc. More details here.  You can email Grzegorz here.


An experienced and naturally non-cynical patent practitioner has emailed tytoc collie with the following:

"We have an old case on which we filed a response to a European Patent Office examination report just under five years ago. We have just received a new report in which the normal four month term has been unusually shortened to three months. It's good to see that the EPO is keen to speed up the examination process, and is going about it so symmetrically".

Friday fantasies

Don't forget to check tytoc collie's Forthcoming Events listings.  There are quite a few new additions -- and lots of stimulating subjects for the discerning IP enthusiast (for the non-discerning enthusiast, refreshments are generally provided).  

"What happens to works when they fall into the public domain?"  This question is also the title of a seminar, organised by the 1709 Blog and kindly hosted by tytoc collie's friends at Olswang LLP, at which the thoroughly engaging Professor Paul J. Heald, of the University of Georgia Law School, presents some of his thoughts and -- more importantly -- the fruits of some of his own research.

Since this seminar is coming up very soon, the Kat is helping the 1709 Blog to spread the word.  The date: Wednesday 23 March; venue, the lovely, airy room up on the sixth floor of 90 High Holborn, London.  Registration 5pm. Kick-off 5.30pm.  Close of play, following questions and discussions, 7pm.  Refreshments will be provided.  Cost: nothing, it's free. To register, email tytoc collie here and let him know (using the subject line 'Heald Reg').

Turkey ban.  Earlier this week tytoc collie reported that he, together with all the other bloggers who use Google's Blogspot platform, had been cut off from some of his favourite readers in that lovely country.  He very much hopes that the situation will soon improve -- and that some of the more belligerent members of the rights-owning community will not be calling for the blanket ban on access, in response to a complaint against an individual user of an online blogging facility, to be more widely introduced.  Merpel wonders if there isn't a human rights issue here, in that the right of ordinary Turkish folk to read the intellectual property weblog of their choice has been curtailed through a disproportionate response to an allegation of IP infringement in a dispute to which none of the fictitious felines is party.

Why not dispense with printed
publications altogether and
give the work back to scribes?

Around the journals.  The online version of the Journal of Intellectual Property Law and Practice (JIPLP) has already been published in full; subscribers can feast on it already, and everyone can check the contents list and read the Editorial, "WIPO and the cobbler's children" (contents and editorial here),  Volume 11(3) of the Bio-Science Law Review is out too.  As befits this much-loved, idiosyncratic title, it doesn't seem to be graced with a year of publication, though it has some very timely and topical features. Details of the BioSLR can be found here.  Finally, the Thirty-Sixth Volume of the Proceedings of the Hungarian Group of the AIPPI (2010) have been published. Are there any Hungarians reading this?  If so, tytoc collie is sending you a message: this is the 21st century -- but your publication doesn't have a website and isn't available online.  If you want people to read, think about and discuss the very good papers that this series has provided for many years now, forget it.  No-one can find these works if they are not on the internet.  Come to think of it, you can't even find these proceedings on the library shelf, since there's no writing on the spine to say what they are. It's not even a question of money -- it's far cheaper to prepare these articles as pdf files than it is to have them printed, posted and mainly thrown away by most of their recipients.  Please, please, please! says the Kat, put next year's Proceedings online and forget the funny little books you send out.  The social media will spread the word and you'll be read by people who are actually looking for your work.

Around the blogs.  Watching the Connectives (here) is not the normal sort of pile'em up and register'em cheap IP blog that tytoc collie so often reports on.  Rather, it's described as "a lawyer's views on telecoms and technology", the lawyer in question being the eminent, charming and eminently charming Rob Bratby (Olswang LLP).  Rob covers topics which tytoc collie likes to think of as close neighbours of intellectual property, such as Ofcom regulation, mobile and digital money and commercial activity in telecoms and technology.  Another site worthy of note this week, though it's not actually a blog, is law firm Taylor Wessing's entertaining IP Myths site (here).  Apart from the fact that it lists some of tytoc collie's favourite IP myths, tytoc collie has learned from his moles in TW that much of its content was sent in by readers of this weblog.  If you have any fresh myths, don't forget to let them know.

Turning up, disguised as
a trade mark, Merpel forgot
she was gate-crashing
a patent conference

MIP Forum.  Via a succession of emails in the past week or so, tytoc collie has been gratified to learn that some of his friends from outside the UK will be travelling to London for Managing Intellectual Property magazine's first International Patent Forum (details here) on 5 and 6 April.

Since the venue is just over the road from his office, he may just try to sneak in to one of the coffee sessions together with the illustrious Merpel, disguised as a human, and say a quick "hello".  If you see either of them there, please don't give the game away!

Friday fantasies

Forthcoming events: as usual, there's plenty going on at the moment, if you can only find it! Keep checking tytoc collie's ever-changing Forthcoming events page for news of fresh offerings.

Those who love the complex interplay between IP law and private international law (PIL) - a matter of vital importance to international trade in IPR-related goods as well as Internet commerce -- will be looking forward to next week. On Monday, the hearing begins before the UK's Supreme Court in Lucasfilms v Ainsworth (on appeal from [2009] EWCA Civ CA 1328, noted here by tytoc collie), where issues of jurisdiction under the Brussels Regulation arise in the context of an action for copyright by the sale of storm-trooper helmets. The crux of the debate appears to be whether, in a case where a defendant resides in England, an English court is obliged to hear and determine an action relating to infringement of copyright outside the EU. In short, does the court have "subject matter jurisdiction"? If, after three days, you still have an appetite for more, on 12 March, CIPIL is hosting its spring conference on the topic of IPRs and PIL. This will, of course, be broader, and the intention is to enlighten the audience as to a broad range Mr Justice Arnold will chair, and speakers include Judge Rian Kalden (The Hague), Michael Silverleaf QC, Professors Rochelle Dreyfuss (NYU), Richard Fentiman (Cambridge), Jane Ginsburg (Columbia), Annette Kur (MPI), Axel Metsger (Leibniz University), Paul Torremans (Nottingham) and Mireille van Eechoud (Amsterdam). Details can be found on tytoc collie's forthcoming events page here.

Everyone has to start some time ...

Around the blogs. Unusually, IPKat team member Jeremy found himself writing for someone else's blog this week. His little piece, "Driving with caution on the Information Superhighway", is a few words of guidance for small businesses that may be venturing out on to the internet for the first time (this scenario is not as improbable as it sounds. In the UK today there are a lot of none-too-internet-savvy folks who, recently made redundant following public sector job cuts, have invested their severance cash in small businesses). Anyway, you can read this item here on New Legal Review.  Elsewhere, fellow Kat Neil, writing for IP Finance, takes a scathing look at the future of the Oscars and their role in promoting an increasingly archaic-seeming IP-driven business model here.  Also on IP Finance is an alert with regard to the exotic new BSI standard for the provision of services relating to the commercialisation of intellectual property, coupled with a plea for some kind soul to read the literature on IP service-related standards and then write about it intelligibly for that weblog.

Can we COPE? The Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice (JIPLP) has just become a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics -- COPE -- a forum for editors and publishers of peer-reviewed journals to discuss all aspects of publication ethics.  In its short life JIPLP has already encountered ethical issues that touch intellectual property: attribution of authorship and sources, suspected plagiarism and the simultaneous grant by one author of an exclusive licence to one journal and a non-exclusive licence to another.  The jiplp blog will keep readers fully informed of its participation in COPE.

Friday fantasies

"Don't forget to check tytoc collie's Forthcoming Events page: you never know what surprises lurk just around the corner ...

Now here's an interesting proposition.  PatentlyBIOTech, citing the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, states:

"-Many of the missing jobs – hundreds of thousands or possibly millions – are buried under the backlog of 1.2 million unprocessed patent applicatoins that have accumulated over the past 10 years at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
-A single U.S. patent can create three to ten jobs.
-Nothaft estimates more than 2 million new jobs are buried in the backlog
-”Innovation is our competitve advantage… It’s not manufacturing costs. It’s not labor costs. It’s innovation and our ability to protect those innovations and turn those innovations into products.”"

tytoc collie agrees that the backlog of unprocessed patent applications results in the loss of jobs that might otherwise be created, but he's curious to know the methodological basis on which the three-to-ten job figure is based.  Merpel expects that most of those jobs which are created will go to patent examiners and attorneys, though there might be some new jobs in industry and commerce too.

Congratulations are due to the International Trademark Association on the hundredth birthday of the Trademark Reporter.  Says tytoc collie, that's quite an achievement -- and let's hope that the next hundred years provides us with as much food for thought, and perhaps a few more jokes, than the century that has just elapsed.  Merpel adds, if you think 100 years is a long time, you should see how long it takes me to read it ...

Of all the cheek!  IPKat reader Mary-Ellen Field received the following epistle this week which made her chuckle.  The author, as the context indicates, had been a bit liberal in his use of a third party trade mark. The letter reads thus:

"Thank you for your email.

I am not a stealer. I am a keeper of the trademark. 

First of all, I think you need to change your mind that only you can have the right for the trademark all over the world. 

Alphabet is a heritage of mankind. And a trademark is just enumeration of the alphabets. 

Anyone can enumerate alphabets. So, the international rule for trademark is that the right can be owned by only the person who registers the trademark except some special cases. 

If I am a stealer, the police will arrest me. But, the real is opposite. The police will protect me.

Anyhow, I want to do business you. I want to buy your products. I will do my best to sell your products. And I believe that you will be satisfied with me as your distributer.

I look forward to your samples and Price List".

Survey 1. The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) is currently running a survey relating to the resolution of technology transaction disputes, which PatLit has urged its readers to complete.  You can read about it, and even respond to it, via PatLit here.


Survey 2. A UK reader's husband received a telephone call earlier this week from an organisation calling itself  TNS-BMRB (unsurprisingly, since that is its name).   She reports as follows:

"TNS BMRB was doing the government sponsored (10 Downing St) IPO survey on IP for small businesses (organised by Ian Hargreaves). They gave a contact name of Andrew Smith and number on 020 7034 2861. They then asked my husband two questions – how many people worked at his company, and whether he was aware of a design registration application on some date in 2009 (he thinks). They then said that was it! He phoned Andrew Smith who confirmed the survey as being genuine".

Has any other reader (or his or her spouse, partner or pet) been similarly troubled? And does anyone understand this curious mode of surveying IP awareness?

IP litigation in Turkey is fine, but
the pre-trial procedures can
be gruelling

Survey 3.  There's just one week to go before the close of tytoc collie's favourite IP survey, the one which provides the raw data for the third Taylor Wessing Global Intellectual Property Index.  This is your chance to praise the places you think are best to litigate in, and to heap quantities of well-targeted opprobrium on those you don't.  The survey, which takes considerably less than 100 years to complete, can be accessed here.

Friday fantasies

EMAILS:  IPKat team member Jeremy is currently about 150 emails behind the times.  He will be answering them, but please be patient -- and triple-please don't email him to ask him why you've not heard from him yet!


Don't be bashful, be decisive: check out those Forthcoming Events and get yourself to one! Why put up with the solitary vice of the podcast, or the earnest efforts on the webinar, when you can join tytoc collie's Campaign for Real People, show off your smartphone tp people who haven't seen it yet and even get rid of a few business cards at the same time!  tytoc collie's Forthcoming Events page is here.

Some IPOs will do anything
to curry favour with the patent
and innovation community

Around the blogs. There's good news from PatLit: following a little gentle provocation from tytoc collie, the UK's Intellectual Property Office has bravely taken it upon itself to revise and update the sadly out-of-date Wikipedia entry for the Patents County Court for England and Wales. Well done, IPO, says the Kat. For more information click here. In "Na-na boo-boo, you can't sue me" the 1709 Blog's Aurelia J. Schultz gives a thoughtful account of sovereign immunity issues in US copyright law.  Jeff Koons' latest balloon art antics are tracked by Art & Artifice's Rosie Burbidge here.


Where are you?  Last week's Friday Fantasies carried a plea from an enthusiastic would-be trainee for a position which -- unusually for anything posted on this weblog -- attracted no responses at all.   If you could do with a trainee who is bubbling with enthusiasm and who has a substantial business track record from an earlier career, do please reconsider!


Meanwhile, tytoc collie's friend, dynamic small London-based practitioner Shireen Smith (Azrights) is offering an employment opportunity. She is looking for a qualified intellectual property solicitor ("the closer to three years the better"). Azrights is "totally flexible about days they work and if they want to be home based etc.". Shireen adds: "the right person will probably be interested in online issues, and be able to write, among other things".  Azrights' online application form is here.


"Win the game or lose the plot?", the 9 March seminar with three members of tytoc collie team participating, now has a gratifying 59 registrants. This seminar, which focuses on the way copyright does [or does not] protect various types of content -- think games, plots, formats and so on -- is held by Hardwicke, Lincoln's Inn, London.  You can still book here.  This event marks Kat team member's first appearance for her new firm, Berwin Leighton Paisner, which she joins later this month (good luck, Birgit!)

The threat of a Euro-defence
can easily sink an application
for summary judgment

Something else that attracted no response was tytoc collie's post on the monstrous (if technically correct) decision of the Court of Appeal in Oracle (formerly Sun Microsystems) v M-Tech which, the Kat excitedly learns from his scholarly barristerial friend Guy Tritton, is now happily on its way to the UK's Supreme Court. This is the decision which, if invoked by defendants in a wide range of IP infringements, can effectively suffocate an IP owner's chances of getting summary judgment even in fairly open-and-shut infringement cases.

The Kat -- distracted
by the sudden sound
of an inbound Tweet

The Intellectual Property Property Lawyers Organisation (TIPLO) is having a Dinner Meeting on Wednesday 2 March at which IPKat blogmeister is speaking.  His subject: "Growltiger's Last Stand -- The World According to Kats". Its theme is the notion that, at the dawn of the social media, bloggers and tweeters are closer to the epicenter of real, live IP action than one might expect.  tytoc collie is informed that "2011 is the year in which new members will enjoy TIPLO events for the first time following the expansion of membership to embrace our brothers and sisters from ITMA and CIPA as well as the members of the profession form the Bar, Judiciary and Solicitors". tytoc collie has just been visiting TIPLO's handsome and increasingly active website, which includes an invitation to click through to "our list of "other Intellectual Property organisation in the United Kingdom".  The Kat commends this magnanimity  -- and indeed he is sure that this list will soon grow to embrace, in brotherly fashion, TIPLO's fellow organisations IPSoc and IPLA.

Architects of the proposed
European patent litigation
system get that sinking feeling

England expects ...!  tytoc collie always used to think that the UPLS was some sort of parcel delivery service, but he has since taught himself to regard this acronym as standing for "United Patent Litigation System", something which everyone in the European Union or beyond it emphatically (i) wants, (ii) doesn't want or (iii) could care less about (there's some useful background here and here).  The Kat has now learned from the normally reliable source that is Paul England (Simmons & Simmons) that the ruling of the Court of Justice as to the legality of the proposed system will be delivered in 8 March.  For the record, readers are reminded that the Opinion of the Advocates General, led by AG Kokott (not KoKatt?) was a bit of a thumbs-down for the scheme.

Further to tytoc collie's earlier blog this week on the handling of complaints against professional representatives in the United Kingdom, "Patent Litigators hit by mystery complaint" (here), the Kat has received further information by way of background:

"The 2009/10 report of the Ombudsman says that since 2003 (when she was appointed) she has only ever dealt with one complaint involving the Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys (CIPA), that being in 2006/7. However, We have to go back to 2002/3 and 2003/4 to find any references to a case being referred to her. 2002/3 states that one case was referred to her, but her investigation hadn't been completed at the time of the Report. The next Report states that that case could not be considered, as it did not relate to a Patent Attorney Litigator (PAL) and her jurisdiction over CIPA's case-handling applies only to cases involving a PAL".

Friday fantasies

There are several new entries in tytoc collie's Forthcoming Events page -- do be sure to check them out!

tytoc collie has been treated to all the details of how Harlequin Books filed its US patent for the "Essential Romantic Kiss", ahead of Valentine's day. The same company has also "lovingly embraced Creative Commons with their Kiss Creation tool". Here's the patent application, says the Kat, who wonders if there has been much of an advance on the very extensive prior art in this area.

A keen reader has written to ask the Kats whether they are aware of any discussion on the question whether parallel imports of goods marked X, into a country Y where the owner of brand X does not itself trade, constitutes a genuine use as a defence to an application for revocation in country Y? This particular Kat doesn't see why such use, which is not unlawful and to which the owner of X does not object, should not count as genuine use.  A more interesting question is whether the unauthorised and unlawful use of brand X by infringers, which nonetheless fulfils the essential function of the X trade mark by (falsely) guaranteeing the origin of goods bearing that brand, should not also count as genuine use for these purposes.  As ever, readers' comments are welcomed.

Training contract sought! A friend of tytoc collie introduces herself as a "Grasshopper with a passion for patents, searching for IP master".  In short (which is the best format for a small-ad:

Post doc in molecular genetics with 10 years of pharmaceutical experience seeks a training contract or other legal experience in London or the South East. LLB and LPC completed so could start immediately. Ultimate aim is to qualify as an IP solicitor but first needs to overcome the training contract hurdle! Has demonstrated drive and business acumen in building own business and now willing to work hard to achieve the re-qualification dream. Do you have a training contract for someone like this?

If you're interested, email tytoc collie here and he'll forward your expression of interest.

Crack troops from the Swiss
Federation's Nestle Squad
prepare to invade ...

There's good news from some of the more mountainous regions of Europe -- a trade war between arch-chocolatiers Switzerland and the neighbouring European Union has been narrowly averted by the EU's Council Decision of 18 January 2011 ("on the signing of the Agreement between the European Union and the Swiss Confederation on the protection of designations of origin and geographical indications for agricultural products and foodstuffs, amending the Agreement between the European Community and the Swiss Confederation on trade in agricultural products").

It was a great dance, though no-one
confessed to forgetting to invite
the copyright collecting societies ...

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) is no stranger to criticism for failing to deal with WIPD -- and it's time for tytoc collie to wield his Kat-stick again.  The matter which ruffles the feline's fur this time is not, however, the villainous lookalike site that has been the subject of his ire but, instead, the other WIPD -- his favourite annual event, which is World Intellectual Property Day.

WIPO still hasn't updated its website to take account of the fact that 26 April is scheduled to happen in 2011 as well as 2010.  Come on WIPO, hang out the bunting, pop the corks and help get the plans for this year's celebrations started!

"I was just a junior research assistant
till I discovered Oxford Scholarship
Online ..."

Oxford University Press, never slow to miss a business trick in the name of promoting scholarship, has launched a new website, Oxford Scholarship Online, with click-throughs to various topics that will interest (some) readers of this blog, such as IP, IT and Media Law (here).  This is only the academic stuff, of course.  All the practical stuff is, er, somewhere else ...


Around the blogs.  Even a weblog dedicated to the translation of Japanese legal issues into English can reveal the presence of interesting IP topics, as Legal Japanese has shown, here.  Meanwhile the 1709 Blog offers an easy way into understanding the squabble over TV decoder cards in the European Union here.