Friday focuses

There’s going to be another get-together of the Solo IP Practitioners' Group. It’s an early evening start at 5pm on Thursday 14 February. The venue is the Hall of the Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys at 95 Chancery Lane, London WC2A 1DT. For map click here. The Big Attraction is the IPKat's friend Duncan Bucknell, the solo IP strategist and publisher of the IP Think Tank blog. Duncan will discuss some recent trends in IP strategy across the globe and what to watch in 2008. He plans to give an insight into how the sole practitioner can promote a practice offering strategic advice to top of the range clients based on expertise, freedom from conflict and the promise that work will not be delegated. A roundtable discussion will follow.

Participants can share their concerns about working alone and the solutions they may have found to work to provide the comfort that clients with decent legal budgets need if they are to forge their relationship with a network of hands-on solo practitioners rather than with international mega-firms.

The Group also welcomes Gavin McGivern from Sweet & Maxwell, who helped organise Westlaw subscriptions for Group members. He will be showing the Lawtel Precedents and, if anyone would like a trial password to see what’s there, it's worth asking even if you can’t come to the meeting. All this -- and you can still make it to a romantic venue to meet your beloved for 7:30. For the rest, there are some decent drinking establishments in the vicinity to continue the debate. If you'd like to attend, email Barbara Cookson here. This event is free and it counts for ITMA and CIPA Continuing Professional Development points.


The IP Sole Practitioners' Group is also considering an amicable get-together for a drink or two at the forthcoming International Trademark Association Meeting in Berlin this May. Provisionally pencilled in is some time on the Tuesday evening, 20 May, probably around the 8-10pm mark, subject to sufficient demand. If you're a sole practitioner, are likely to be attending INTA and want to meet other examples of your species, email the IPKat here and let him know.

Left: some sole practitioners just try to blend into the crowd at big events like INTA's Annual Meeting, but it never really works


IPKat team member Jeremy is stitching together a piece about two copyright issues relating to wikis: authorship and ownership. He hasn't found much in either the academic or professional literature that specifically addresses this subject; nor has he found any relevant case law. If you know of anything that has been published on wiki authorship/ownership -- particularly if it's really good -- or any litigation, please email Jeremy here and give him the details. All useful responses will be duly acknowledged.





And now for some repeats ...


If you're interested in the problems caused by the use of IP as collateral and the subtle interplay between finance and IP, you're welcome to attend an informal and friendly meeting of the IP Finance Group in the late afternoon/early evening of Wednesday 30 January, at which Eva Lehnert will say a few words about the UNCITRAL guidelines and what they mean to IP owners. Further details here (the number of people signed up so far is 20, which is pretty good for a subject that most people pretend doesn't exist).



Would you find a weblog on intellectual property law and business developments in Africa handy? If so, click here and register your interest.



The Annual Intellectual Property Round-up Conference organised by CLT takes place in Central London on Wednesday 30 January. If you'd like to attend, or are just curious to read the brochure, the details are here.