CONFERENCE REMINDER; FAKE BOOK REVIEW

1 IP litigation conference: a reminder

If you've not yet booked for the CLT Intellectual Property Litigation Conference 2005, which takes place next Tuesday, 11 October, you've still got a little time to do so. IPKat co-blogmeister Jeremy will be in the chair, and also speaking on the new-fangled scheme for the Patent Office to give non-binding opinions on patent validity and infringement. Programme here. Patent Office website on non-binding opinions here. The official press release on non-binding opinions here.


2 Knockoff!

Published by Kogan Page ("Europe's largest independent publisher of business titles"), Tim Phillips' Knockoff: the Deadly Trade in Counterfeit Goods is a pretty racy read. Subtitled "The true story of the world's fastest growing crime wave" the book is built up, layer upon layer, by the author's effective use of interviews with victims, perpetrators and investigators. Both the use of interviews and the writing style itself make maximum use of Phillips' experience as a journalist.

Phillips (no relation of the IPKat co-blogmeister) paints a deservedly bleak picture. Far more emotive than manufacturers' self-assessed bleats about how much they lose in sales - often based on questionable assumptions concerning how buoyant their sales would be in the absence of fakes - is the telling of tale after tale about individual instances of counterfeiting as they affect ordinary people and their communities. Phillips tells it as it is. It's a tale of greed, of powerful alternative economic structures, of anarchy and often death.

In hardback and with nearly 250 pages for your £15.29, it's a good read and not a dear one either. Buy it and get depressed!