Friday fantasies

There are lots of fresh events on the IPKat's Forthcoming Events page, specially added for your education, erudition and electrification. Don't forget to check them out here!

The IPKat checks out the acquis commautaire
before deciding how ACTA might affect it

This Kat has kept meaning to write about this, but has been distracted by the momentous events of, er, the moment.  The 'this' in question is the European Commission's proposal for a Council Decision on the conclusion of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (a.k.a. ACTA, the text of which is appended to the proposal).  The proposal's explanatory memorandum reflects the Commission's view that ACTA will not ruffle the European Union's acquis communautaire [Merpel explains: this is the French term for "the legislative and judicial baggage we have to carry around with us whether we like it or not"] and that, since the EU's commercial (trade) policy powers apply here, its own powers are exclusive as regards the whole treaty.  The only exception here is the bits of ACTA that deal with criminal sanctions which, says the Commision require ratification by the individual Member States.  Professor Steve Peers (thanks, Steve, for spotting this item, by the way) tells the Kats that there are reports afoot that the European Parliament might refer ACTA to the Court of Justice in order to ascertain whether it is compatible with EU law.  If anyone gets to hear more about this, do please let us know.

Readers of this weblog will recall the IPKat's interest in the APP STORE trade mark, claimed by Apple but vigorously resisted by some of the other large beasts that roam the Applications Jungle (see earlier post from the European battlefront, here).  Now here's some more news: Gerry Gavigan has alerted the Kat to Apple's failure to gain preliminary injunctive relief in infringement proceedings against Amazon's Appstore after a fruitless attempt to persuade the judge that it had a chance of success at trial. The IPKat really doubts whether the efforts that are made to colonise generic and quasi-generic terms such as App Store generate anythings other than annoyance, resentment and disrespect within the wider community of human beings who don't know what to call an App Store if not "App Store" and don't want to be taught to change their ways.

The Cocos Islands prefer
fish to phish ...

Cull in the Cocos.  The Register reports that Google is ejecting more than 11 million websites based on the .co.cc domain from its search results on the ground that their contents are predominantly spam and phish.   The .cc domain is that of the Cocos (or Keeling, if you prefer) Islands, which are somewhere in the Indian Ocean (climate change permitting).  The .co.cc space is not an official second level domain; it happens to be owned by a Korean which, acting as a sort of registry, offers single sub-domains at no cost but lets customers bulk-register 15,000 addresses at a time for just US$1,000.  The IPKat is heartened by this. He has no appetite for spam or phish, but had no idea that an inanimate search engine might get sick of these unpalatable dishes too.

Ready for the rain --
but no-one mentioned
the gale-force wind ...

Next week's star attraction. On Monday and Tuesday next week the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) is holding a summer party hosting a conference to address "the role of innovation and technology in the development and diffusion of green technologies to provide solutions to the challenges posed by climate change". The WIPO Conference on Innovation and Climate Change (as it is to be known) brings together major stakeholders – international organizations, government, industry, and civil society – to focus on innovation partnerships between the public and private sector to develop and diffuse relevant technologies. Says WIPO: "Registration is required for this event, which is open to general public".  Says the IPKat, if climate change is an issue, be sure to bring an umbrella.

Not so much to smile at?
Brazil lags behind Chile
and Costa Rica in
the LA innovation list

Around the blogs.  Should we go back to the principles of unfair competition law when protecting designs, ask the editorial on today's jiplp weblog here. 1709 Blogger Ben Challis explains latest developments in the US on "inform and alert" cooperation between copyright owners and internet service providers.  The SPC Blog is running a competition for which the prize is an amazingly heavy two-volume work, Pharmaceutical, Biotechnology and Chemical Inventions: World Protection and Exploitation, which is edited by the Kat's Australian friend Duncan Bucknell. The SOLO IP blog asks if the new Bribery Act provisions in the UK make any difference to the lives of small and sole IP practitioners.  Writing for IP Tango, Patricia Covarrubia notes how poorly the Latin American nations, including the fabled wonderland of Brazil, score in the INSEAD Global Innovation Index.  Anyone who was bored or intimidated by the admittedly long IPKat post on Edwin v OHIM, Elio Fiorucci can read a shorter, more accessible account on Class 46 here.