Monday miscellany

Wanted! The IPKat has been asked to find a work experience placement, either in a law firm or in the legal department of a company, for a bright and interested 15 year old schoolboy from North West London. He is available from 2 to 13 July inclusive.  If you have a space in your office and are prepared to share it with him, please email the IPKat here and let him know, with the subject line "Work Experience".

The IPKat's Danish-based friend and colleague Matthew Elsmore has been wondering if anyone has ever put together a guide on intellectual property issues arising out of the writing and publication of textbooks and educational materials. This Kat can't think of one offhand, though he can clearly recall various battles with publishers over the content of some of his own books. The legal department of one publisher expected him to get permission for the reproduction of a lengthy quote from Charles Dickens (died 1879), and he also had some fairly vigorous correspondence over the question whether the reproduction of a figurative trade mark in a chapter on trade mark registration constituted a trade mark infringement. It is quite possible that other authors have had similar experiences, so perhaps a legal guide would be quite handy. Can anyone point Matthew in the direction of such a work -- or would they like to write it?

Around the blogs.  Afro-IP's Kingsley Egbuonu's A to Z tour of national IP office sites takes him this week to Mauritius, where he has some highly encouraging news to report.  Neil J. Wilkof, on IP Finance, has posted a fascinating piece on "Loss Leaders and Bait and Switch: Marks and Brands in the Auto Industry". Rick Sanders, writing on his law firm's blog, has some interesting insights on ReDigi in the US in "Music Industry v. ReDigi: The Problem with Phonorecords: Copyright".  Still on copyright and the US, Eleonora Rosati has posted a punchy little piece on the controversial Research Works Act. There's a good Current Intelligence note by Riccardo Sciaudone on the Advocate General's Opinion in Case C-461/10 Bonnier Audio, which you can find here on the jiplp weblog and which addresses the uncomfortable relationship between IP enforcement and respect for personal data.

The 1709 Blog's "Red Bus" copyright seminar on Tuesday 21 February, which was launched only last Thursday, now has a remarkable 61 registrants already signed up for it -- even though the details of who else will be speaking apart from Michael Edenborough QC have yet to be finalised.  If you'd like to join them, you've not much time to lose!

"Today I opened the TMView database", reports the IPKat's Bulgarian friend Ventsi Stoilov, "and I discovered that there are many changes". First, he spotted that the trade mark search criteria have increased. Even better, you now have the opportunity to receive a mail signal in the event of various changes in trade mark status --oppositions, updates, etc.  If you are so minded, you can transform your search results directly into pdf., Excel or html format. Three new states are now TMView-searchable: Romania, Lithuania and Sweden. For those who are constitutionally equipped to live in an atmosphere of continuing feverish excitement, Ventsi reports that there are even more changes coming in March. Ventsi's overall assessment: "I think this is good news for all of us, because it will allow us more conveniently and easily to search for marks".

Doing its best to extend a hand to prospective users, the UK's Intellectual Property Office is excitedly asking "Have you joined our IPO LinkedIn group where IP news/issues can be discussed?". If you already have, you can skip to the next item on this blog post. If not, details of the group can be found here.

Those who both love European patent law and have a high tolerance for loose-leaf publications will be pleased to note that the latest release -- Release 36 -- of Sweet & Maxwell's European Patent Decisions (EPD) has now been, well, released.  This publication, authored by the IPKat's friends Noam Shemtov and Florian Leverve, is updated four times a year, the next release being expected this coming April.