Friday fantasies

Forthcoming events: as usual, there's plenty going on at the moment, if you can only find it! Keep checking the IPKat's ever-changing Forthcoming events page for news of fresh offerings.

Those who love the complex interplay between IP law and private international law (PIL) - a matter of vital importance to international trade in IPR-related goods as well as Internet commerce -- will be looking forward to next week. On Monday, the hearing begins before the UK's Supreme Court in Lucasfilms v Ainsworth (on appeal from [2009] EWCA Civ CA 1328, noted here by the IPKat), where issues of jurisdiction under the Brussels Regulation arise in the context of an action for copyright by the sale of storm-trooper helmets. The crux of the debate appears to be whether, in a case where a defendant resides in England, an English court is obliged to hear and determine an action relating to infringement of copyright outside the EU. In short, does the court have "subject matter jurisdiction"? If, after three days, you still have an appetite for more, on 12 March, CIPIL is hosting its spring conference on the topic of IPRs and PIL. This will, of course, be broader, and the intention is to enlighten the audience as to a broad range Mr Justice Arnold will chair, and speakers include Judge Rian Kalden (The Hague), Michael Silverleaf QC, Professors Rochelle Dreyfuss (NYU), Richard Fentiman (Cambridge), Jane Ginsburg (Columbia), Annette Kur (MPI), Axel Metsger (Leibniz University), Paul Torremans (Nottingham) and Mireille van Eechoud (Amsterdam). Details can be found on the IPKat's forthcoming events page here.

Everyone has to start some time ...

Around the blogs. Unusually, IPKat team member Jeremy found himself writing for someone else's blog this week. His little piece, "Driving with caution on the Information Superhighway", is a few words of guidance for small businesses that may be venturing out on to the internet for the first time (this scenario is not as improbable as it sounds. In the UK today there are a lot of none-too-internet-savvy folks who, recently made redundant following public sector job cuts, have invested their severance cash in small businesses). Anyway, you can read this item here on New Legal Review.  Elsewhere, fellow Kat Neil, writing for IP Finance, takes a scathing look at the future of the Oscars and their role in promoting an increasingly archaic-seeming IP-driven business model here.  Also on IP Finance is an alert with regard to the exotic new BSI standard for the provision of services relating to the commercialisation of intellectual property, coupled with a plea for some kind soul to read the literature on IP service-related standards and then write about it intelligibly for that weblog.

Can we COPE? The Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice (JIPLP) has just become a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics -- COPE -- a forum for editors and publishers of peer-reviewed journals to discuss all aspects of publication ethics.  In its short life JIPLP has already encountered ethical issues that touch intellectual property: attribution of authorship and sources, suspected plagiarism and the simultaneous grant by one author of an exclusive licence to one journal and a non-exclusive licence to another.  The jiplp blog will keep readers fully informed of its participation in COPE.