Making a bid for monopoly power - IP auctions come to town; Canada seeks declaration of entitlement; In the War's

Alas, far too busy to get there himself, the IPKat missed the Ocean Tomo auction of intellectual property rights last Friday - the first such event to be held in London. Fortunately Managing Intellectual Property editor James Nurton was there (this might be something to do with the magazine being the auction company's media partner, suspects the IPKat) - and James has penned this report on the auction's results. In brief the sale raised some £4 million, of which more than half (£2.25 million, the highest sum yet bid in an IP auction) was paid for a single lot - US patent 5,895,454 for a method of internet shopping with a one-stop shopping cart.

Left: finding the shopping cart was easy - but Moggins just couldn't work out how to upload it on to the internet ...

The IPKat suspects that there will be an increased movement towards IP auctions, as individual IP rights are increasingly viewed as commodities in their own right and not merely as business tools in the hands of specific enterprises. He also reckons that, to the extent that the prices paid for individual lots are known and publicised, it will be far easier for licensors, licensees, purchasers, vendors, lenders, infringers and everyone else to develop an intuitive sense of how much an IP right is worth - though he doubts that the IP valuation industry is about to be put out of business. Merpel says, keep an eye on what the institutional investors are doing: once the pensions funds are bidding, we'll know that IP auctions have come of age.


Patent agent Brett Slaney, of Blakes, (formerly Blake, Cassels & Graydon - the name which has all but vanished from the firm's smart new website) has warned the IPKat that, as of yesterday, 2 June 2007, the Canadian Patent Office now requires a declaration as to how the named applicant(s) is/are entitled to apply for and be granted a patent.

The amended rule requires that the petition (or subsequent declaration) indicates whether the applicant(s) (i) is/are the inventor(s), (ii) employs the inventor(s), (iii) can apply under an agreement with the inventor(s), (iv) has an executed assignment from the inventor(s), (v) enjoys the inventor'(s)' consent to apply, (v) owns the invention under a court order, (vii) is entitled to apply under a specific type of transfer of entitlement exists and (viii) has/have changed its/their name(s). So if you're seeking a Canadian patent and any of these listed events applies to you, don't wait to be told - just let your Canadian representative know.


Always pleased to see the fruits of other bloggers' labours, the IPKat has just been browsing this site: IPwar's - the weblog of Warwick A Rothnie. For the record, Warwick is a distinguished IP enthusiast with a long track record that straddles the subject's academic and professional dimensions.

Initially thrown by the apostrophe in the word IPwar's, the IPKat decided that it must be a contraction of the elements IP (=intellectual property) + war's (=of or pertaining to War[wick]). Merpel speculates, shouldn't the legend read, in relevant part, "the weblog of Warwick, A Rothnie"? After all, Warwick is definitely and verifiably a Rothnie ...