Friday fantasies

Friday -- time to check those Forthcoming Events again, for signs of real excitement.  Also, to check the various discounts available to IPKat readers on conferences, books and services, click "Special offers for blog readers" here.

There's a new case heading for a preliminary ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Union. It's Case C-414/11 Daiichi Sankyo Company Limited, Sanofi-Aventis Deutschland GmbH v DEMO Anonimos Viomikhaniki kai Emporiki Etairia Farmakon and it comes all the way from the Polimeles Protodikio Athinon (Greece). Excitingly, it's about the TRIPS Agreement:

"Questions referred 

1. Does Article 27 of the TRIPS Agreement setting out the framework for patent protection fall within a field for which the Member States continue to have primary competence and, if so, can the Member States themselves accord direct effect to that provision, and can the national court apply it directly subject to the requirements laid down by national law? 

2. Under Article 27 of the TRIPS Agreement are chemical and pharmaceutical products patentable subject matter provided that they satisfy the requirements for the grant of patents and, if so, what is the scope of their protection? 

3. Under Articles 27 and 70 of the TRIPS Agreement, do patents covered by the reservation in Article 167(2) of the 1973 Munich Convention which were granted before 7 February 1992, that is to say, before the above agreement entered into force, and concerned the invention of pharmaceutical products, but which, because of the aforementioned reservation, were granted solely to protect their production process, fall within the protection for all patents pursuant to the provisions of the TRIPS Agreement and, if so, what is the extent and content of that protection, that is to say, have the pharmaceutical products themselves also been protected since the above agreement entered into force or does protection continue to apply to their production process only or must a distinction be made based on the content of the application for grant of a patent, that is to say, as to whether, by describing the invention and the relevant claims, protection was sought at the outset for the product or the production process or both?"

If you would like to advise the UK government whether it needs to get stuck into this one, email policy@ipo.gsi.gov.uk before this coming Tuesday 11 October 2011 [Yes, we continue to get stupidly and unrealistically short periods of time in which to respond to questions of great complexity and sometimes even of great importance. The IPKat will buy a full three-course lunch, with wine, for whichever civil servant or politician manages to get the Intellectual Property Office and the Treasury Solicitor to cooperate on devising a more sensible that gives at least 10 working days in which interested parties can respond].

Yesterday the IPKat reported on Halliburton, the latest British decision on excluded subject-matter for patents (see the IPKat's report here). A quick news-flash: the UK's Intellectual Property Office, which initially refused the application, has indicated that it will not appeal. The Kat thanks David Sproston for letting him know.  Merpel notes that Halliburton is the only litigant this year the name of which includes the letters of her favourite fish, the delectable halibut (sorry about the illustration -- it does look a bit out of plaice here).

Calling all economists! Earlier this week, in "The economic impact of IP: whatever happened to the rest of the world?", here, the IPKat raised some very serious questions about the relative imbalance between US IP economists and their brethren in other jurisdictions.  He has since received a huge response, in the form of emails and constructive comments, for which he thanks his readers.  The Kat would like to clarify something, though: some people have thought he was saying either that there weren't any non-US IP economists or that there were some but they just weren't very good.  This is far from the truth. The Kat's inquiry essentially asks why non-US IP economists don't receive more attention.  Merpel says there should be a little notice stating: "No real economists were meant to be hurt or damaged in the posting of this blog".