GOWERS REVIEW - THE DATE, AND IPKAT BRIEFING SESSIONS

Gowers review - the date

The IPKat has it on the best authority from James Nurton of Managing Intellectual Property that the Gowers Review will be published on Wednesday 6 December 2006.


Gowers Review - IPKat briefing sessions

Left: are IP rights the chains that shackle competition and consumer rights, or are they the links that bond intellectual effort and financial investment to their promised return?

The IPKat is hugely relieved that we now know when the long-awaited review conducted by Andrew Gowers of the UK's intellectual property framework is to be published. Everyone wants to know what the Gowers Review is going to mean for the IP communities in the United Kingdom. To this end, the IPKat has arranged a briefing session to address the following issues:

* What was the Gowers Review asked to do?

* What are its main conclusions?

* What's in it for IP owners?

* What's in it for commercial users of the IP of others?

* What's in it for the consumer?

* What do its recommendations mean for the IP professions?

* Where, if anywhere, do we go from here?

The session will be held first on Monday 11 December 2006 at the Chamber of Shipping (Carthusian Street, London, just round the corner from Barbican tube station), from 1.30pm till 5.30pm. It will be repeated on the following dates: Mondays 8, 22 and 29 January 2007.

Right: participants debate the defensive and offensive merits of IP rights

If you'd like to attend any of these sessions, please email IPKat co-blogmeister Jeremy on jjip@btinternet.com and tell him (i) who you are, (ii) which date you'd like to attend. Places are limited, but the IPKat will try to accommodate all of you. The fee for the four hour session (which includes coffee and biscuits) is a very reasonable £80. Invoices will be furnished at the door for all who attend. Please remember to pay!

Gowers: see the responses and comments from the Open Rights Group, the British Academy, the National Union of Journalists, the Royal Society, AURIL, NESTA, UNICO and the Publishers Association (among many others ...)