Friday fantasies

EMAILS:  IPKat team member Jeremy is currently about 150 emails behind the times.  He will be answering them, but please be patient -- and triple-please don't email him to ask him why you've not heard from him yet!


Don't be bashful, be decisive: check out those Forthcoming Events and get yourself to one! Why put up with the solitary vice of the podcast, or the earnest efforts on the webinar, when you can join the IPKat's Campaign for Real People, show off your smartphone tp people who haven't seen it yet and even get rid of a few business cards at the same time!  The IPKat's Forthcoming Events page is here.

Some IPOs will do anything
to curry favour with the patent
and innovation community

Around the blogs. There's good news from PatLit: following a little gentle provocation from the IPKat, the UK's Intellectual Property Office has bravely taken it upon itself to revise and update the sadly out-of-date Wikipedia entry for the Patents County Court for England and Wales. Well done, IPO, says the Kat. For more information click here. In "Na-na boo-boo, you can't sue me" the 1709 Blog's Aurelia J. Schultz gives a thoughtful account of sovereign immunity issues in US copyright law.  Jeff Koons' latest balloon art antics are tracked by Art & Artifice's Rosie Burbidge here.


Where are you?  Last week's Friday Fantasies carried a plea from an enthusiastic would-be trainee for a position which -- unusually for anything posted on this weblog -- attracted no responses at all.   If you could do with a trainee who is bubbling with enthusiasm and who has a substantial business track record from an earlier career, do please reconsider!


Meanwhile, the IPKat's friend, dynamic small London-based practitioner Shireen Smith (Azrights) is offering an employment opportunity. She is looking for a qualified intellectual property solicitor ("the closer to three years the better"). Azrights is "totally flexible about days they work and if they want to be home based etc.". Shireen adds: "the right person will probably be interested in online issues, and be able to write, among other things".  Azrights' online application form is here.


"Win the game or lose the plot?", the 9 March seminar with three members of the IPKat team participating, now has a gratifying 59 registrants. This seminar, which focuses on the way copyright does [or does not] protect various types of content -- think games, plots, formats and so on -- is held by Hardwicke, Lincoln's Inn, London.  You can still book here.  This event marks Kat team member's first appearance for her new firm, Berwin Leighton Paisner, which she joins later this month (good luck, Birgit!)

The threat of a Euro-defence
can easily sink an application
for summary judgment

Something else that attracted no response was the IPKat's post on the monstrous (if technically correct) decision of the Court of Appeal in Oracle (formerly Sun Microsystems) v M-Tech which, the Kat excitedly learns from his scholarly barristerial friend Guy Tritton, is now happily on its way to the UK's Supreme Court. This is the decision which, if invoked by defendants in a wide range of IP infringements, can effectively suffocate an IP owner's chances of getting summary judgment even in fairly open-and-shut infringement cases.

The Kat -- distracted
by the sudden sound
of an inbound Tweet

The Intellectual Property Property Lawyers Organisation (TIPLO) is having a Dinner Meeting on Wednesday 2 March at which IPKat blogmeister is speaking.  His subject: "Growltiger's Last Stand -- The World According to Kats". Its theme is the notion that, at the dawn of the social media, bloggers and tweeters are closer to the epicenter of real, live IP action than one might expect.  The IPKat is informed that "2011 is the year in which new members will enjoy TIPLO events for the first time following the expansion of membership to embrace our brothers and sisters from ITMA and CIPA as well as the members of the profession form the Bar, Judiciary and Solicitors". The IPKat has just been visiting TIPLO's handsome and increasingly active website, which includes an invitation to click through to "our list of "other Intellectual Property organisation in the United Kingdom".  The Kat commends this magnanimity  -- and indeed he is sure that this list will soon grow to embrace, in brotherly fashion, TIPLO's fellow organisations IPSoc and IPLA.

Architects of the proposed
European patent litigation
system get that sinking feeling

England expects ...!  The IPKat always used to think that the UPLS was some sort of parcel delivery service, but he has since taught himself to regard this acronym as standing for "United Patent Litigation System", something which everyone in the European Union or beyond it emphatically (i) wants, (ii) doesn't want or (iii) could care less about (there's some useful background here and here).  The Kat has now learned from the normally reliable source that is Paul England (Simmons & Simmons) that the ruling of the Court of Justice as to the legality of the proposed system will be delivered in 8 March.  For the record, readers are reminded that the Opinion of the Advocates General, led by AG Kokott (not KoKatt?) was a bit of a thumbs-down for the scheme.

Further to the IPKat's earlier blog this week on the handling of complaints against professional representatives in the United Kingdom, "Patent Litigators hit by mystery complaint" (here), the Kat has received further information by way of background:

"The 2009/10 report of the Ombudsman says that since 2003 (when she was appointed) she has only ever dealt with one complaint involving the Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys (CIPA), that being in 2006/7. However, We have to go back to 2002/3 and 2003/4 to find any references to a case being referred to her. 2002/3 states that one case was referred to her, but her investigation hadn't been completed at the time of the Report. The next Report states that that case could not be considered, as it did not relate to a Patent Attorney Litigator (PAL) and her jurisdiction over CIPA's case-handling applies only to cases involving a PAL".