Secret press release scandal - Amanda Michaels in 'Appointed Person' revelation! Latest MIP

"This message is confidential and intended solely for the person to whom it is addressed". This is a funny rubric to read in an email containing a press release, but then it's a funny sort of world. The subject of the press release is the elevation of veteran trade mark lawyer Amanda Michaels to the exalted rank of Appointed Person:

"Hogarth Chambers is delighted to announce that Miss Amanda Michaels has been appointed by the Lord Chancellor as an Appointed Person under the Trade Marks Act 1994. The Appointed Person hears appeals from the Patent Office Trade Marks Registry in trade mark cases. There is no appeal from the decision of an Appointed Person.

Roger Wyand QC (joint Head of Chambers at Hogarth Chambers) said “I am absolutely delighted that Amanda has obtained this appointment. She is already a leading trade mark barrister and this will add yet another string to her bow.”

The IPKat wishes Amanda well and fervently hopes that she'll be controversial enough for all her rulings to feature on this blog. Merpel adds, I've never understood this metaphor: violins have strings, bows have hairs (and Kats have whiskers ...). Adding a string to the bow would surely make the violin sound a bit dodgy - or are we talking about something completely different?"


It took a long time for the February issue of near-monthly Managing Intellectual Property to arrive, weighed down as it was with a record-breaking (back-breaking?) 132 glossy pages.

Of particular interest in this issue is the "Best Patent Firms" survey, which now covers 65 jurisdictions and spans a massive 70 pages. The winners are categorised as 'patent contentious' and 'patent prosecution' respectively. There's also a smart, accessible piece by Brinsley Dresden (Lewis Silkin) on negotiating product placement deals and a notable acknowledgement in print of what people are increasingly starting to say to one another - that's Pillsbury's James Gatto's feature on whether the GPL is actually enforceable.

Full contents of whatever the current issue happens to be: here