Friday fantasies

Now is the season for competitions and prizes.  The IP Finance blog has already drawn attention to the generous rewards awaiting those who succeed in the 2012 International Graduate Student Business Plan Competition for bright new plans for IP and innovation-led business.  And this week the IPKat has also learned the details of the Competition Law Association's Golding Essay Prize, courtesy of his still-technically-young friend Christopher Stothers (Arnold & Porter):

Following the Supreme Court’s judgment in Eli Lilly v Human Genome Sciences (noted here), a prize of £1,000 is to be awarded for an essay of up to 5,000 words submitted by a student, trainee solicitor, pupil barrister, devil barrister (from Scotland), or trainee patent or trade mark attorney on the following topic: "Should genetic information be patentable and, if so, when?".  The closing date for entries is 29 February 2012 and further details can be found here.

The original university of Carolina ...

EIPTN is the European Intellectual Property Teachers' Network.  The Kat has heard this week that the report of the 5th annual workshop, held at the Charles University, Prague, which was held on 27-28 June, is now available. You can download it via the Prague workshop page here, or directly from this link here. It's 83 pages long and -- best of all -- has the email addresses of several pages-worth of European academics and friends, so now you don't have to email the IPKat to ask for them any more ...

Someone who is even closer to the epicentre of IP information than the IPKat is Chris Torrero, who is never, it seems, more than a mouse-click from some fascinating item which he tells the Kats all about.  This week he has alerted us to this Intellogist post on Chinese non-patent literature, pretty handy for those poor souls who fret about the vast prior art which trails in the wake of that country's red-hot innovation. A further reflection of Chris's current interest in China can be viewed here, in this link to an IP Brief feature on the refusal by the Chinese to allow the registration of FRACOGNAC as a trade mark for alcoholic drinks other than beer (Class 33), following some doughty opposition by the Bureau National Interprofessionnel du Cognac. This is not the first time that this persistent applicant has been thwarted, either.

The UK Intellectual Property Office's Brands Conference ("Branding in a Modern Economy") takes place in London on 29 November. The IPKat's friends in the IPO are looking forward to welcoming his readers, but respectfully remind them that they have to register their interest ahead of the event if they want to ensure that the ratio of participants to canapes remains viable.  Full details are available here.

While on the subject of the UK Intellectual Property Office is in the running for one of the ComputerWeekly Social Media Awards 2011, this being for the category of Best Use of Social Media (Public Sector). The IPKat heard about this from a number of sources which included, via the social media, the IPO itself. The entry relates to the IPO's efforts regarding the Hargreaves Review. Notwithstanding this, the office has done pretty well this year and deserves a pat on the back rather than the usual stab. If you wish to vote or merely to ponder, you can find further details here.

ECIS (the European Committee for Interoperable Systems) has an event in the offing. a birthday celebration seminar, plus champagne, dedicated to the SAS v WPL software copyright case which is to be considered by the Court of Justice of the European Union just one of these days. The venue: Brussels; the date is 1 December.  Further details are available here.