EU IPR border detentions up

The EU has issued a press release congratulating itself on a significant increase in customs activity at the EU's external borders in relation to IPR infringement.

• Over 49 000 customs detentions were registered in 2008, compared to 43,000 in 2007
• 80% of the customs interventions were the result of requests from industry
• There was a sharp increase in 2008 in the actual number of IPR infringing goods detained by customs – 178 million compared to 79 million in 2007
• There was a 2600% increase in the number of DVDs detained
• China was the main source of infringing goods, but other countries were hotspots for particular goods (e.g. India for medicines)

The IPKat notes that there are two ways to read these figures - either customs detection is getting better, or potentially infringing imports are getting more prevalent. Merpel wonders about the huge increase in the number of DVDs - is it because more people have DVD players and so it's more worthwhile importing them?

Friday fillers

Remember to check out the Forthcoming Events feature in the IPKat's side bar: there's something for (almost) everyone!

Two people whose comments on intellectual property have been very much in the news this week are the Pirate Party's sole Member of the European Parliament Christian Engstrom, whose article in the Financial Times has been much commented on. Another Christian in the news was the world's most high-profile Christian, none other than the Pope himself. His Holiness whose latest encyclical, Caritas in veritate, states, at para 22:

"Corruption and illegality are unfortunately evident in the conduct of the economic and political class in rich countries, both old and new, as well as in poor ones. Among those who sometimes fail to respect the human rights of workers are large multinational companies as well as local producers. International aid has often been diverted from its proper ends, through irresponsible actions both within the chain of donors and within that of the beneficiaries. Similarly, in the context of immaterial or cultural causes of development and underdevelopment, we find these same patterns of responsibility reproduced. On the part of rich countries there is excessive zeal for protecting knowledge through an unduly rigid assertion of the right to intellectual property, especially in the field of health care".

The Kat notes that the Pope and the politician each espouse the moral high ground in order to dampen the ardour of those who create the wealth to which they don't aspire. Merpel's feeling a bit despondent since she couldn't find the Latin version, of which the English is presumably a pale translation. Quemadmodum dicere 'unduly rigid assertion of the right to intellectual property' in lingua latina, pensit catta bellissima ... Tufty adds his thanks to all the readers of this blog who sent in a link, either enriched by their comments or without them.

Unlike modern celebrities, who appear to be most easily recognised when unwrapped, even famous confectionery products will generally pass unknown if they stay within their packaging. This at least is the conclusion one can draw from Case T-28/08, Mars v OHIM, in which the Court of First Instance of the European Communities confirmed that its Community trade mark for the three-dimensional shape of its Bounty bar was invalidly registered (see commentary on this decision here). This decision was however picked up by the press and turned out to have been spotted by nearly all 8,000 of the IPKat's weekday readers. The thing the IPKat liked best about this decision is the contrast between the commonplace nature of the Bounty shape and the grandiloquence of the verbosity in which that commonplace nature is framed by the Court:

"31 ... as regards the allegedly distinctive characteristics of the shape in question, ... an elongated shape is almost intrinsic to a chocolate bar and does not therefore significantly depart from the norm and customs of the relevant sector. Furthermore, the word ‘bar’ itself suggests that the shape of the product it describes is elongated. It is a shape which comes naturally to the mind of the consumer of mass consumption goods such as the goods concerned ...

32 Secondly, the applicant’s argument that ‘applying rounded ends to an elongated rectangular chocolate bar is in itself unusual in the sector’ must also be rejected. ... many chocolate bars available on the market display that combination of elements. Furthermore, the applicant itself admitted in the application and at the hearing that there are other chocolate bars on the market which have a shape similar to that of the mark applied for. The applicant has not however shown in what respect those other goods are merely copies of the mark applied for in the present case.

33 Lastly, as regards the three chevrons on the top of the shape at issue, ... the Board of Appeal was correct to find ... that the average consumer of the category of goods concerned will perceive those chevrons, at the most, as decorative elements and not as a sign indicating the commercial origin of the product. The applicant has not established that the relevant consumer would pay particular attention to that characteristic or to the rounded ends to the point of perceiving them as an indication of the commercial origin of the product concerned. ... the end user will usually pay more attention to the label on the product or its packaging and the name, image or graphic design displayed thereon than simply to the shape of the product. Furthermore, as the product in question is sold in opaque packaging the consumer will generally see its shape only after having removed that packaging".

In other words, bars are bar-shaped and this is often the case with chocolate bars. The word "bar" makes people think of a bar. Other bars also look like bars, and some even have rounded corners. People who eat them don't study the top to see if there's a pattern on it and, if they do, they think it's decoration. Oh, and most people choose one bar over another because they read the label or identify the wrapper.


Secular Citizen brings news that the Hindu goddess Lakshmi has been converted into a brand ambassador for Burger King. Unsurprisingly there have been protests.

Right: another 'Texan Whopper', guaranteed to affront no-one but the vegetarian lobby

According to The Telegraph,

"The 'Texican Whopper' is an affront to Hindu sensitivities in its own right – it includes an all-beef patty, a beef chilli-con-carne slice, egg-based Cajun mayonnaise, all forbidden by strict Hindus. Some devotees would even be offended by the inclusion of onions which they believe inflame passions. But it is the depiction of Lakshmi which has provoked widespread anger with its suggestion that a Hindu deity eats beef".

The IPKat wonders what is in worse taste: this tactless depiction or the burger itself. He is however mollified by the fact that he has learned a little about Cajun mayonnaise, a product of which he was previously ignorant.

Many readers have sent the IPKat this link to the eBay petition for the European Commission to intervene to stop brand owners [actually or allegedly] restricting the online sale of branded goods -- some to urge him to sign it, others to press him to condemn it. To his shame, this member of the IPKat team has to confess that he has never either bought or sold any item via eBay, so he can't speak from direct experience. However, he believes that, with e-sales as with recorded music, the genie is out of the bottle and is unlikely to be squeezed back into it without a fight. If brand owners -- who have a lot of other things to worry about including competition with each other in their own sectors -- can't cooperate to create an entity of their own to compete effectively with eBay, they can expect little support from a European Commission that places cheap prices and consumer choice so far above whatever they may be able to offer.

Trial judge says "Boileau" to patent licence; appeal court agrees

The draft judgment of the Court of Appeal for England and Wales in Oxonica Energy Ltd v Neuftec Ltd [2009] EWCA Civ 668 has started circulating, though the final, approved text has yet to reach this member of the IPKat team and awaits posting on BAILII. This appeal relates to a contractual dispute, heard by Peter Prescott QC acting as a Deputy Judge. Peter Prescott summed up the whole matter up in the first two paragraphs where he said:

"How do we interpret a formal commercial agreement if it is ambiguous and we have reason to believe that its draftsman did not have a deep understanding of the relevant law? I think that is what this case is about.

The secret of drafting legal documents was best described by Nicolas Boileau, who was not only a literary critic but a qualified lawyer: "Ce que l'on conçoit bien s'énonce clairement et les mots pour le dire arrivent aisément". What one conceives well can be stated with clarity and the words to say it come easily. We should all have that framed and displayed on our desks. But too often the opposite precept is followed. Bits of legal boilerplate are bolted together so that it is the words that are allowed to shape the concept instead of the other way round. In that regard the invention of the word processor has worked wonders. Sometimes, I fear, it has dispensed with the 'concept' altogether. Misfortune not infrequently follows."

The Court of Appeal (Lord Justice Jacob giving the judgment with which which Judge and Arden LJJ concurred) dismissed the appeal, adding this comment concerning the interpretation of the patent licence:

"16. Each side supported its position with what I can call “big” arguments supported by various subsidiary arguments based on inference from other clauses. The latter have minor significance here given the poor drafting and the Mitsui principle of construction [".. the poorer the quality of the drafting, the less willing the court should be to be driven by semantic niceties to attribute to the parties an improbable and unbusinesslike intention, if the language used, whatever it may lack in precision, is reasonably capable of an interpretation which attributes to the parties an intention to make provision for contingencies inherent in the work contracted for on a sensible and businesslike basis": Mitsui Construction Co Ltd v A-G of Hong Kong (1986) 33 BLR 14)]. So it is not necessary to deal with these in detail. What matters are the big arguments.

17. Not surprisingly, each side said that the other’s position amounted re-writing the document rather than construing it. I do not agree with either view. Given that neither side suggests the agreements are void for ambiguity (a position of last resort in relation to the construction of any contract) the search is on to ascertain what the reasonable reader would make of the disputed phrase in the context of the two documents and the background".

The IPKat has complained about bad drafting on numerous occasions and continues to do so. Sometimes they are the result of inappropriate welding together of boilerplate terms; on other occasions they reflect a failure of licensor and licensee to reach agreement on certain issues or -- even worse -- an agreement not to flesh out some specifics, in case the attempt to do so should reveal a lack of consensus concerning them. But, given the regularity with which fudged and fuzzy contract terms get litigated, is the short-termism that leads to the signing of a botched job a better policy than nailing down the foreseeable issues before signing the licence?

Cure for bad drafts here

CLA pharma sector enquiry event

The IPKat has received notice of a forthcoming Competition Law Association event discussing the EU's Pharma Report.

'The Pharmaceutical Sector Inquiry: implications for the sector and beyond' will take place on 27 July at 6pm at the offices of Simmons & Simmons, CityPoint, One Ropemaker St, London EC2Y 9SS.

In the hotseat are Rowan Freeland (Simmons & Simmons) and Stephen Kon (SJ Berwin). The cost is £25 for non-members, £20 for members and £10 for associate members. CPD points are available.

If you're interested in going along send your name, address, any dietary requirement and an appropriate cheque to Sharon Horwitz, CLA Secretary, c/o Glynda Gabriel, Linklaters LLP, One Silk St, London EC2Y 8HQ.

STOP PRESS: this event will now take place a day earlier than originally publicised on 27 July. All other details remain the same.

Bits and pieces

Next Tuesday 14 July, from 5.30pm to 7pm, Australian practitioner Julian Gyngell will be addressing an informal meeting of the IP Finance blog group. He'll be raising some interesting issues on the topic of "Phonewords and Finance". Says Julian,

"Organisations pay handsomely (sometimes millions of dollars) for phonewords because they believe that the phoneword will help increase telephone communications with their business (and hence increase sales and their goodwill with customers). However, the rights of use conferred by the issuing authority in the country in question are limited to the specific underlying telephone number itself and the purchaser’s proprietary rights in the phoneword (if any) will depend on the phoneword in question and, in particular, whether

a. the purchaser owns a trade mark (registered or unregistered) which corresponds to the phoneword (or the key word in the phoneword) or

b. conversely, another organisation owns a trade mark (registered or unregistered) that corresponds to the phoneword (or the key word in the phoneword).

I plan to review a number of recent cases, including some very recent WIPO domain name decisions involving phonewords, and advise that a purchaser of a telephone number that is a phoneword needs to be acutely aware of a number of important factors if it is to maximise the potential return on its investment, namely

a. the scope of the rights of use that it has acquired (and those that it hasn’t acquired);

b. the rights of third parties that might conflict with its use of the phoneword and

c. the steps that it should take to further protect its investment".

McDermott Will & Emery have kindly agreed to provide a venue in their City office at 7 Bishopsgate (here). If you're coming, please email me here and let me know so I'll have a rough idea of how many bodies will be putting in an appearance. Everyone is welcome and admission is FREE.


The Class 46 weblog, which has specialised in European trade mark law since its inception in December 2007, has just collected its 700th email subscriber (702, to be exact, and rising). Well done! If you'd like to take a look at Class 46, you'll find it here. Perhaps an even bigger achievement, though paradoxically a smaller one, is the tally of 500 email subscribers attained by The SPC Blog which, as its name suggests, just deals with a single IP subject: the extension of term of pharmaceutical and agrochemical patents through the grant of supplementary protection certificates and paediatric extensions. You can see this blog here.

Last week this member of the IPKat team wrote

"As a British author of some antiquity, many of whose books are now no longer available and who has here: >generated a lengthy list of publications in periodicals, this member of the IPKat team is becoming increasingly perplexed about what precisely the proposed Google Book settlement might mean to him personally .... Knowing that many readers of this blog are in much the same position, he guesses that he can't be alone. If enough readers -- and even their publishers -- would like to get together with him during the summer to discuss the legal and commercial dimensions, can they please email him here with the subject heading 'Google Book'. If there's enough interest, we can get together for a drink and a chat".

First, thanks to those of you who have mailed to say you'd like to participate. Please accept this as an acknowledgement of your emails! Secondly, if anyone else who missed last week's post would like to add their name to the list of interested parties, it's not too late!


Finally, an appeal for patience: between his various email accounts this member of the IPKat team currently receives between 200 and 300 emails a day. If you email either the IPKat or Jeremy and don't get an immediate reply, please don't take it as a personal slight or rebuff: we'll get back to you when we can. Hot news that is sent to the IPKat on theipkat@gmail.com should also be sent to any team member by whom it is intended to be actioned, since the Kat's box is often only cleaned out once a day.

The pharma sector in Europe: what will become of it?

STOP PRESS: the full report can now be downloaded from the DG Competition website here.

Eight months after the publication of its 426-page preliminary report, DG Competition of the European Commission has at last unveiled its controversial Final Report on the Pharmaceutical Sector (see earlier IPKat posts here, here, here, here, here and here). This report, some 600 pages, long, will take a lot of reading. Meanwhile, here's the thrust of the report as described in this morning's press release:

"Antitrust: shortcomings in pharmaceutical sector require further action

Market entry of generic drugs is delayed and there is a decline in the number of novel medicines reaching the market ... The sector inquiry suggests that company practices are among the causes, but does not exclude other factors such as shortcomings in the regulatory framework. As a follow up, the Commission intends to intensify its scrutiny of the pharmaceutical sector under EC antitrust law, including continued monitoring of settlements between originator and generic drug companies. The first antitrust investigations are already under way. The report also calls on Member States to introduce legislation to facilitate the uptake of generic drugs. The report notes near universal support amongst stakeholders for a Community Patent [it has taken about two decades to win this battle...] and specialised patent litigation system [... and rather less time to win this one ...] in Europe [... but this is a much wider issue than pharma alone].

Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes said: “We must have more competition and less red tape in pharmaceuticals [That's no surprise]. The sector is too important to the health and finances of Europe's citizens and governments to accept anything less than the best. The inquiry has told us what is wrong with the sector, and now it is time to act. When it comes to generic entry, every week and month of delay costs money to patients and taxpayers. We will not hesitate to apply the antitrust rules where such delays result from anticompetitive practices. The first antitrust investigations are already under way, and regulatory adjustments are expected to follow dealing with a range of problems in the sector."

Main findings and policy conclusions

The inquiry has contributed significantly to the debate on European policy for pharmaceuticals, in particular for generic medicines.

On the basis of a sample of medicines that faced loss of exclusivity in the period 2000 to 2007 in 17 Member States, the inquiry found that citizens waited more than seven months after patent expiry for cheaper generic medicines, costing them 20% in extra spending [the Kat bets these figures will come in for some conflicting explanations, along with others in the report].

Generic delays matter as generic products are on average 40% cheaper two years after market entry compared to the originator drugs. Competition by generic products thus results in substantially lower prices for consumers. The inquiry showed that originator companies use a variety of instruments to extend the commercial life of their products without generic entry for as long as possible [this applies in all patent-driven industries to some extent; if it's an evil to be cured here, does that cast light on DG competition's view of patents in other sectors?].

The inquiry also confirms a decline of novel medicines reaching the market and points to certain company practices that might contribute to this phenomenon. Further market monitoring is ongoing to identify all the factors that contribute to this decline in innovation [the IPKat has said this before and he'll say it again: if he had £100 million to invest, every penny of it would go into the generics sector -- he wouldn't waste a penny on original research nowadays, unless he was thinking of becoming a philanthropist].

Left: Moggins burrows into a box of debranded, repackaged cat-nip pills in search of an English translation of the contra-indications

Reacting to the findings, the Commission will apply increased scrutiny under EC Treaty antitrust law to the sector and bring specific cases where appropriate. The use of specific instruments by originator companies in order to delay generic entry will be subject to competition scrutiny if used in an anti-competitive way, which may constitute an infringement under Article 81 or 82 of the EC Treaty. Defensive patenting strategies that mainly focus on excluding competitors without pursuing innovative efforts will remain under scrutiny. To reduce the risk that settlements between originator and generic companies are concluded at the expense of consumers, the Commission undertakes to carry out further focused monitoring of settlements that limit or delay the market entry of generic drugs [this is an interesting phenomenon: it would be great to get some current data and to take a look at how these settlement payments affect pharma in the US]. In the case of clear indications that a submission by a stakeholder intervening before a marketing authorisation body was primarily made to delay the market entry of a competitor, injured parties and stakeholders are invited to bring relevant evidence of practices to the attention of the relevant competition authorities.

On regulatory issues the inquiry finds that:

There is an urgent need for the establishment of a Community patent and a unified specialised patent litigation system in Europe to reduce administrative burdens and uncertainty for companies. A full 30% of patent court cases are conducted in parallel in several Member States, and in 11% of cases national courts reach conflicting judgements [so 89% don't. Let's look at positives and see how we can push that figure up while we await a systemic overhaul].

Recent initiatives of the European Patent Office (EPO) to ensure a high quality standard of patents granted and to accelerate procedures are welcome. This includes measures taken in March 2009 to limit the possibilities and time periods during which voluntary divisional patent applications can be filed (so called "raising the bar exercise")

The Commission is also urging Member States to:

ensure that third party submissions do not occur and in any event do not lead to delays for generic approvals

significantly accelerate approval procedures for generic medicines - for example, the Commission believes that generic products should automatically/immediately receive pricing and reimbursement status where the originator drug already benefits from such status, which would allow for a faster product launch in certain cases [the IPKat suspects that, if the approval system were devised now, it would be a lot simpler than the current one anyway]

take action if misleading information campaigns questioning the quality of generic medicines are detected in their territory [presumably misleading campaigns of this nature are already unlawful, so what the Commission wants looks like specific state intervention rather than leaving it to generics to protect their own interest]

streamline trials that test the added value of novel medicines.

To assist Member States in delivering speedy generic uptake and improved price competition, the report contains an overview of national measures and their effects on generic uptake (volume, prices, number of entrants) and encourages Member States that want to benefit from generic savings to consider such measures. In this light the Commission will also examine existing EU rules in the area of pricing and reimbursement (Transparency Directive 89/105/EEC)".

The IPKat will have to do a lot of reading before he reaches proper positions. Meanwhile, readers are welcomed and encouraged to post their comments below.


Mission statement of DG Competition's Enterprise and Industry unit on Competitiveness in the Pharmaceuticals industry and Biotechnology here
DG Competition's web page listing the various materials available with regard to the pharma sector inquiry here
Read the Financial Times' speculation this morning here
Reuters' take, pre-publication, here
Big pharma bracing itself for bad news here
Five reasons why things are looking up for pharma here
How pharma faces competition in the US here, in Australia here and in India here
Things could always be worse: pharma patents in Venezuela here
Meet competition commissioner Neelie Kroes here

Right Start for Kick Start? Another IPO initiative

It must be the season for press releases, since the IPKat seems to be getting a lot of them of late. Here's another one which emanated yesterday from the UK's Intellectual Property Office, succinctly entitled "New trade mark services from the Intellectual Property Office make it cheaper and faster to kick start small businesses". According to this one:

"From October this year, businesses will be able to register trade marks more cheaply and easily [well, that can't be bad!] thanks to a number of new proposals announced today by the Intellectual Property Office.

In publishing its response to the ‘Helping businesses register trade marks and patents’ consultation paper, the Intellectual Property Office will implement a number of services aimed at strengthening business competitiveness throughout the UK.

[we've already been told twice that something good has been done. Now, even before we know what the changes are, we get the Minister's comment ...] David Lammy, Minister of State for Intellectual Property, said: "We are committed to supporting businesses in these difficult economic times, and our Right Start [not to be confused with Start-Rite] and E-filling initiatives [... which we still haven't been told about] make it easier and cheaper for trade mark owners, and in particular small businesses, to register and protect their brands. Registering a trade mark is an important step for a business to take. By protecting their intellectual property they are protecting their innovative ideas of the future. Failing to do this risks them losing their investment in developing successful brands for their products and services."

Proposals to be introduced include [at last!]:

A ‘Right Start’ service for trade marks. A business using the new 'Right Start' service will be able to defer payment of half the usual £200 trade mark application fee until after it has seen the Intellectual Property Office's assessment of whether the mark can be registered. [interesting idea, but it makes you wonder: if the deferring of £100 is going to make a meaningful difference to the viability of a small business, is the applicant dangerously undercapitalised?] If there any problems, the business will have an opportunity to informally discuss them with the trade mark examiner before deciding whether to proceed with the application and pay the balance of the fees [this informal discussion can be hugely helpful, especially when persuading traders not to opt for descriptive business identifiers. It would be great if this service could be offered before the applicant parts with any of his money, though].

An E-filling initiative. This will offer a £30 reduction in application fees for e-filed trade marks where the full discounted fee is paid at the time of filing and a £10 reduction in the application fee for e-filed patent applications. It also offers reduced fees for e-filed patent search and examination requests. [this probably benefits the IPO at least as much, if not more, than it benefits applicants -- but there's no harm in that].

[IPKat's helpful suggestion: this might be a good place to stick the Minister's comment, now we know what he's commenting about] The full responses to the consultation paper can be found on the Intellectual Property Office website".

Merpel adds, oh look! Someone else has already registered Right Start in Class 16, though fortunately only for 'magazines relating to parenting skills; photographs; cards; posters; calendars'.

Tim Cleary

The IPKat has just learned of the recent death of Tim Cleary, Head of Trade Mark Examination in the Patents Office, Ireland. As editor of the European Trade Mark Reports, this member of the blog team has read every word of Tim Cleary's decisions in recent years and has found them succinct, fair and sometimes quietly humorous. One of this writer's favourite passages of Tim Cleary's prose can be found in Newmans Chocolates Ltd v Société des Produits Nestlé, a decision from June 2006 involving the opposition raised by the owner of the MILKY BAR trade mark for confectionery to an application to register MILKBEARS for the same products:

"I have no evidence to suggest that the production of milk chocolate sweets specifically in bear-shapes is a common practice among confectioners such that the average consumer would expect such products to emanate from a number of different sources. Secondly, and more importantly, the word MILKBEARS is not at all a direct and obvious substitute for the descriptive term “bear-shaped milk chocolates”. The word makes no reference to chocolate at all and, to the extent that it refers to other aspects of the relevant goods, it does so by means of a covert allusion that on no account could be regarded as banal or commonplace. It is, in fact, a perfectly distinctive trade mark that evokes a concept of bears composed or milk or, perhaps, bears that like to drink milk. It is essentially a fanciful concept and is certainly sufficiently novel to impress itself upon the mind of the average consumer of the relevant goods in a lasting manner. I have no doubt but that the average consumer who was once exposed to the trade mark MILKBEARS, even if used in relation to bear-shaped milk chocolates, would readily recognise the mark on a subsequent occasion of purchase and rely on it to know that the goods so marked were one and the same as those that he had previously seen offered for sale under that name".

And later that year, in Reynolds Metals Company v Cofresco Frischalteprodukte GmbH & Co. KG, an opposition tussle between the earlier mark TOPPITs and the applicant's TUB-ITS, each for storage containers, he produced this little aside:

" ... the striking thing about TUB-ITS is not the look or the sound of it but the economic use of language to tell the consumer that the product so marked is a multi-pack of general purpose storage containers. That message is delivered in a flash and quite unmistakeably, in my opinion. It may be going too far to describe it as zen-like but it is certainly a clever little trade mark!"

The IPKat will miss him.

IP Crime? Bring on the pianists!

76 pages long, the 2008/9 IP Crime Report, published online by the Intellectual Property Office for the United Kingdom, is an impressive read; there are plenty of statistics at the back too. If you don't want to be impressed, or don't have the time to be impressed, you can read the IPO's press release instead.

Right: Harry loved those adidas stripes, but he just wasn't very good at counting

The press release states, in relevant part:

"Partnership work and shared intelligence is key [or should that be "are key"? The poor Kats can never remember] to combating IP crime

The Enforcement community and Industry are reaping the rewards of improved knowledge of IP crime and offenders thanks to the ‘Intelligence Hub’ created by the Intellectual Property Office to support a more targeted approach to operations.

The Intellectual Property Crime Group 2008/2009 IP Crime Report ... highlighted intelligence sharing as being one of the most effective and sustainable ways of tackling IP crime.

To facilitate a coordinated approach and the sharing of information to help address IP Crime, the Intellectual Property Office launched an IP crime strategy in 2004. This included the establishment of the IP Crime Group and outlined the development of an Intellectual Property Office led intelligence hub, working with those agencies leading the way in targeting those involved with IP crime.

The hub has received more than 2,000 intelligence reports since the beginning of 2009; a 120% increase in the same period for 2008 [meaning, from when to when? Also, this suggests rather that figures for 2008 must have been lousy, since 2,000+ intelligence reports doesn't sound like very many when contrasted with the victim estimates of the scale of IP crime]. This vast increase is attributed to the renewed partnerships that have been made with enforcement agencies such as the police and trading standards.

Commenting on the report Mr Lammy said: “... The UK is not alone in the fight [Indeed not! The IP criminals would be in a bad way if they only had the Brits to exploit]. IP crime is a serious global issue. The OECD estimates that the global trade in counterfeit and pirated products seized across national borders is worth around US$200 billion – higher than the GDP of 150 countries [or a good deal less than it has cost the British government to bail out its banks]. This figure continues to increase and doesn’t even include goods produced and consumed domestically.”

The Intellectual Property Office has also recently been awarded competent authority status which enables increased collaboration and intelligence sharing with enforcement agencies in different countries via Europol which will enable IP crime to be tackled further.

However, although progress has been made in combating some of the serious issues of IP Crime, it still poses a serious threat to businesses and consumers. The Rogers Review estimated that criminal gain from IP crime in the UK was £1.3 billion in 2006 with £900 million of this flowing to organised crime. Many believe that today the actual figure is far higher.

Giles York, Deputy Chief Constable of Sussex Police and Chair of the IP Crime Group said: “This latest report clearly shows that IP crime represents a significant threat to UK businesses and consumers [did we never know this before]. ...

The IP Crime Group, which was created in 2004 as a result of the IP Crime Strategy [is this repetition, or is the Kat just suffering from deja-vu?], brought together all the key players [ah, pianists!] in order to set priorities and coordinate activity. The current Group brings together representatives from government, industry and enforcement agencies. The aim of the IP Crime group is to discuss cross-cutting policy issues, raise awareness of IP crime and identify and disseminate best practice".

The IPKat would really like to know how many of the 2,000 intelligence reports received by the IP Crime Group have led to prosecutions and convictions, but accepts that it may be too early for that sort of information to be known. Merpel says, am I alone in wondering whether -- without being any longer -- press releases could be a great deal more informative, which they would be if they broke with the ritual formality that is attached to them. Having to read what the Minister says is a bit like having to sit through the speeches at prize day.

Monday miscellany

A couple of patent-y things happened last week. First, the Court of Appeal for England and Wales dismissed an appeal against the validity of the patent -- and the supplementary protection certificate based on it -- in Generics (UK) Ltd v Daiichi Pharmaceutical Co Ltd and another [2009] EWCA Civ 646. You can read all about this decision on The SPC Blog here. Secondly, on Friday Mr Justice Floyd gave ruled on the scope of injunctive relief to which MMI was entitled in (Patents Court, England and Wales) in MMI Research Ltd v Cellxion Ltd and others [2009] EWHC 1533 (Pat), where Cellxion (i) craftily tried to limit the scope of the injunction by invoking Crown use and (ii) had a go at getting a stay of the injunction pending a possible appeal. To find out what happened, you can visit PatLit here for further information.

The IPKat's friend David Musker (Jenkins), left, has just informed him that his 2001 book The Design Directive is now available on his firm's website here. Says David, modestly: "It sold well through CIPA, and formed the basis of the first part of my later book Community Design Law: Principles & Practice, but is now out of print. I have made a few corrections, but it is largely as published - opinionated, but often not far wrong!".


A bright, bouncy, dynamic and initiative-rich friend of the IPKat has written to inform him as follows:

"I am looking for a role as an IP lawyer. I qualified in Australia in 2001 and I am arranging to be UK qualified. I have broad commercial experience, and specialist IP law experience. My most recent UK role was as an IP lawyer and my remit included advising, filing and prosecuting, opposing and invalidating trade marks and preparing cease and desist letters. It also covered the law of copyright and passing off. Previously, I worked as an in-house commercial lawyer, and at the British Broadcasting Corporation as an IP litigation lawyer. I am particularly strong with collecting relevant evidence and turning a large amount of relevant evidence into strong witness statements. I am confident and outgoing, and meet challenges head on. I take a solutions-based approach, and am committed to my IP law career. I would love to hear from you".

If you'd like to know more, email the IPKat here and he'll forward your details.


The IPKat's copyright-shaped friend Gwilym Harbottle writes to him:

"As you may remember we are running a Copinger competition [details here]. The supplier of the best comment on or suggestion for improvement of the current (15th) edition wins a free copy of the next (16th) edition and its supplements. This is actually quite a worthwhile prize in financial terms – the present ed. plus 3rd supplement are retailing at £545.

There's now less than a month to go (31 July 2009), but unfortunately, despite your kindly featuring us on the IPKat some time ago, the dedicated competition mailbox (Copinger@hogarthchambers.com) has received vastly more spam messages than competition entries".

The Kats -- whose mailbox suffers from the same malaise -- do hope that their readers will rise to the occasion and come up with some good suggestions.