Monday miscellany

IP ThinkTank strategist and enthusiast, the smiling and podcast-friendly Duncan Bucknell has launched a new website, Think IP Strategy. He wants to know what you think of it. Well, you can take a look here and let him know. Duncan's smart new office premises, Bucknell Towers, are depicted on the right.


Talking of strategy, SABIP -- the Strategic Advisory Board for Intellectual Property Policy, published a report at the tail end of last week entitled "The Relationship Between Copyright and Contract Law". Among the authors are the IPKat's friends Estelle Derclaye and Martin Kretschmer. A note on this report and a recently-published book on copyright and contracts can be found on the 1709 Blog here. The report lives here (beware, it's long!) and the executive summary can be found here.


JIPITEC is the catchy name of the brand new Journal of Intellectual Property, Information Technology and E-Commerce Law, an online journal covering current issues of intellectual property, information technology and e-commerce law. Its main focus is on European law -- both at EU and national level -- and articles will be in English, German, French and other European languages. Based on open access principles, JIPITEC articles are available according to the terms of the Digital Peer Publishing Licences, leaving it open to authors to make use of Creative Commons and other licence terms. Peer reviewed, JIPITEC promises to process all submissions within four weeks. You can visit JIPITEC's website and see it for yourself here.

The current WIPO Magazine 3/2010 (June) Issue is now available here on the WIPO website. Topics covered, in agreeably short and easy-to-read format, include Open Innovation, the Green Debate, Benefits of Plant Variety Protection and Why Design Now? Sadly the report on events marking World Intellectual Property Day on 26 April failed to provide coverage of that most pleasurable, creative and memorable of events, the IPKat's Celebrity Cheese and Wine Poetry Recitation reception. The Kat bears no grudges, though, and hopes that WIPO will make amends for this cruel omission by sponsoring the drinks for next year's event.

If you're feeling scholarly and love biotech law, take note: the John Marshall Review of Intellectual Property Law is accepting scholarly papers related to “Biotechnology and Health-Related Issues in IP Law” for its spring 2011 issue. Professionals and scholars are invited to submit a working paper or idea for consideration. Published individuals may also be invited to present their works at the April RIPL symposium. You've got until 10 September this year to make your submissions. For further information or to get your questions answered, email Wasim K. Bleibel here. More info can also be found here.

Time is running out if you want to attend the 11th Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys (CIPA) Certificate in Patent Administration course, which starts on 2 September 2010. Held in London, it seeks to provide systematic training across a range of administrative activities and culminates in an examination, success in which leads to fame, fortune, success in love and even entitlement to Associate Membership of CIPA. The course, the IPKat understands is aimed at experienced administrators and formalities clerks both in private practice and industry. Application form, syllabus and timetable are available on the Institute website here -- but you have to move swiftly, since the deadline for receipt of completed application forms is 16 July which is, er, this Friday ...

Jessica Hefes and Chris Rycroft are the first two IPKat readers to have spotted this fascinating piece of research on the subtle psychological relationship between perceptions of counterfeits and the honesty (or otherwise) of their own conduct. The link describes the research as follows:

"... four experiments were carried out in which participants were given designer sunglasses and told in some conditions they were real and in other conditions fake—actually they were always real.

The results showed that, when told the sunglasses were fake, people behaved in more unethical ways than when told they were real. In one experiment, those wearing sunglasses they were told were authentic cheated on a task 30% of the time, while those told they were fake cheated 71% of the time".