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The January 2008 issue of the Internet and E-Commerce Update of London law firm Olswang, where IPKat team member Jeremy has his IP consultancy, has just been published. The contents of this issue -- which is absolutely free -- can be viewed here, and you can access the full text of each article here. The editorial ("Will the Internet messenger survive 2008?") is not, as one might guess, a discussion of instant messaging services but a focus on the role of the internet service provider:

"Don't kill the messenger" was a sensible policy in the days of biblical David. If recipients of bad news killed their messengers, there would be no messengers interested in the job, however well paid. We predict that 2008 will be the year when more courts than ever before will rule on whether online messengers like ISPs and networking sites deserve the same protection as their offline predecessors.

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Here are some forthcoming events from QMIPRI -- the Queen Mary Intellectual Property Research Institute, London. On Monday 18 February Professor Rochelle Cooper Dreyfuss (left) gives this year's Herchel Smith Lecture at the New Connaught Rooms, Great Queen St, London WC2B 5DA. Rochelle is the Pauline Newman Professor of Law at New York University School of Law and Director of the Engelberg Centre on Innovation Law and Policy. The Herchel Smith Lecture is a free and public event, but participants must register using the Conference form. Doors open at 5.30pm and the lecture begins at 6.00pm. Also on Monday 18 February, and at the same venue, is the Inaugural QMIPRI Annual Conference, Intellectual Property Strategies. Delegates to the conference are automatically registered for the Herchel Smith Lecture. For more information and registration visit QMIPRI's Conference Page. Finally, this coming Monday, 21 January, at QMIPRI's lovely new home in Lincoln's Inn Fields, is the first in the Herchel Smith Seminar Series for 2008, "Trust No Agent: The Author as Agent of Information Policy, The Relationship Between Economic and Moral Rights in Copyright". Doors open at 6pm (for a 6.30 pm start), followed by a drinks reception. Between those two key events, Professor Margaret Ann Wilkinson (University of Western Ontario, Canada) and Gwilym Harbottle (Hogarth Chambers) will lead the discussion. The seminar is free and open to the public, but places are limited, so please register by email here (please include your name, institution/organisation and your own email address). The seminar has Law Society and General Council of the Bar CPD accreditation (2 points).


Sweet & Maxwell's bimonthly series, European Copyright & Design Reports for January 2008 contains four
judicial decisions this time round. The first is the European Court of Justice ruling in Case C-20/05 Schwibbert (noted here by the IPKat). Then there is Performing Right Society Ltd v Kwik-Kit Group Ltd -- a rare Scottish copyright decision on whether a collecting society had an arguable case that the playing of music at work by employees, contrary to their employer's instruction, could be an infringement by the employer (noted by the IPKat here). Then come two cases from England and Wales: the now celebrated Court of Appeal ruling on the "informed user" in designs law in Procter & Gamble Co v Reckitt Benckiser (UK) Ltd (see IPKat here) and a ruling on whether the registration of another's copyright work as a trade mark is a ground of bad faith under trade mark law in Jules Rimet Cup Ltd v Football Association (see IPKat here).