Recent periodicals

The March 2008 of the Oxford University Press monthly Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice (JIPLP) has now been published, looking resplendent in its glossy new blue livery. This is special issue, focusing on IP in the Asia-Pacific, is put together by guest editor Yee Fen Lim, who appropriately contributes a guest editorial too.

Asia-Pacific topics covered include the judicial protection of patents in China, how South Korea has marginalised IP problems arising from MMORPGs by seeking to engage contract law, the Singaporean treatment of non-traditional trade marks and the recognition and protection of well-known marks in Indonesia. The IPKat's favourite, though, is the account by Lanye Zhu and Jiaui Liu of the dispute between the US and China for the moral and indeed legal high ground in their WTO dispute.

Read the editorial in full -- and indeed all the editorials of the past twelve months here
Full contents of this issue here
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Fifty most-read articles since 2005 here


Also freshly published is the March issue of the European Copyright and Designs Reports, produced six times a year from Sweet & Maxwell. This issue contains five decisions:

* Honda v Kwang Yang Motor Co, an OHIM Third Board of Appeal decision on the novelty of an engine design and the nature of the informed user;

* Holey Soles Holdings v Crocs, another OHIM Invalidity Division decision -- this time on what turned out to be the invalidity of the celebrated Crocs footwear design;

* Atria Yhtyma v HK Ruokatalo, another OHIM Third Board of Appeal design decision, invalidating a design for meat foodstuffs;

* Prodir SA v Dariusz Libera, an OHIM Invalidity Division decision on the novelty of a ballpoint pen design;

* Murphy v Media Protection Services, a decision from the Administrative Court *England and Wales) being the highly-publicised conviction of Karen Murphy for receiving and showing in her pub the (cheap) Greek transmission of live football matches.

Volume 9 issue 2 (of 6) for 2006-2007 of the cult bimonthly Bio-Science Law Review has finally been published. Published by Lawtext Publishing, this wonderful periodical is a lot more current than its volume number suggests -- and as usual it's got some great content. The IPKat's choice here is

* "The Food and Drug Administration Amendments Act of 2007", by a three-man team from US law firm Covington & Burling, Erika Lietzan, Michael S. Labson and Shaw Scott. Is this state-of-the-art regulation or voluminous government meddling in free commerce? Don't sneer at this question: it was the subject of furious debate when US food and drug regulation was first mooted in the 19th century.

* "Interpreting Ordre Public and Morality in a Patent Law Context: Which is the Correct Approach?" by Tine Sommer (Aarhus School of Business, Denmark.