Recent periodicals

Maintaining its recent record of coming out ahead of its cover date, the July 2007 issue of Sweet & Maxwell's monthly IP flagship journal, the European Intellectual Property Review, still edited by its originator Hugh Brett, has some highly timely and topical content. This issue includes

* a first-rate rant against the muddled law in the UK on the making of unjustified threats to sue for infringement of certain IP rights, by CMS Cameron McKenna's Isabel Davies and Tom Scourfield. This piece calls for a consultation and indicates that the UK IPO is in principle willing to conduct it [says the IPKat, the state of the law is such that - whether you think threats actions are an abomination or a blessing from heaven - some sort of consultation and rationalisation is long overdue];

* A clear and helpful analysis by two lawyers from the New York office of White & Case, Scott T. Weingaertner and Christopher C. Carnaval, on the no-challenge patent licence issues arising from the US Supreme Court's decision in Medimmune v Genentech;

* a review by Sally McCausland (Special Broadcasting Service), of the recent and speedily-processed Australian copyright amendment to accommodate parody, satire and "mickey-taking".

Left: an example of the tradition of good-humoured irreverence towards objects of respect and veneration, for which Australian culture is well known.

The IPKat notices that this year marks the fortieth anniversary of Hugh Brett's admission as a solicitor in England and Wales and takes this opportunity to salute him for his remarkable and continuing contribution to the living culture of intellectual property practice in the United Kingdom and beyond.



No respecter of normal conventions concerning cover dates, the Lawtext bimonthly Bio-Science Law Review has now issued Volume 8 Issue 5 for 2005-2006. This cute and hugely desirable journal's newly published features include

* A closer look by Hsu Min Chung (Boult Wade Tennant) at the UK and European law on what are now, it seems, perpetually destined to be called the Bolar provisions in patent law, covering the extent to which research and trials may be undertaken without infringing an earlier granted patent;

* Sangeeta Puran (Mayer Brown Rowe & Maw) on the status of clinical data as a subject of intellectual property rights - if, and to what extent, they are;

* Taylor Wessing's Gareth Morgan, on (i) the protection of plants through patents and plant variety rights in the European Union and (ii) the interface between those two quite different legal regimes.

Right: says the IPKat, some plants seem quite good at providing their own protection ...