TRANSLATION WATCH; LATEST EIPR

1 IPKat translation watch

The IPKat has complained long and hard at the failure of the European Court of Justice to furnish English translations of its decisions. This time it's the turn of the European Court of Human Rights. It's now nearly three weeks since the ECHR ruled, in Anheuser-Busch Inc v Portugal, that registered trade marks were "property" within the meaning of the European Convention on Human Rights, but that anything short of a granted right - for example unconfirmed registrations and applications - was not. However, the ECHR website only appears to have a French version of this case.

What about the human right of IP lawyers to access and understand the law in a language that they understand, growls the Kat. Merpel agrees and also wonders whether the ECHR's website is as user-friendly as it could be - the ECJ's site (when it's working) would be a good model to emulate.


2 Latest EIPR

The November 2005 issue of Sweet & Maxwell's monthly European Intellectual Property Review has now appeared. As usual there are lots of goodies in it. Of particular note are

* An Opinion by the intriguingly named Oxonian Leslie Kim Treiger-Bar-Am on the relationship of the meaning of art works and the relationship of their meaning to copyright law, with special reference to Christo's The Gates;

* A learned account by Dutch academic Sven J. R. Bostyn on the referral to the European Patent Office's Enlarged Board of Appeal of some questions concerning the patentability of diagnostic methods;

* A lovely piece by the IPKat's friend Duncan Matthews entitled "TRIPs Flexibilities and Access to Medicines in Developing Countries: the Problem with Technical Assistance and Free Trade Agreements";

* A note by South African IP/IT lawyer Daniel Greenberg, now in London, on the celebrated Black Labour trade mark parody case.