Wednesday whimsies

Reminder! The European Scrutiny Committee of the British House of Commons, which has been following discussions on the proposal to set up a unified patent court in Europe, is holding two evidence sessions this afternoon. The first will explore the concerns of patent lawyers in the UK and Europe with the proposed court. The second will ask the Government to explain its policy on the proposed court, and to answer the concerns of the proposed courts’ many critics. The agenda for the two sessions looks like this (those giving evidence are named in brackets):

* This afternoon, 2.30pm (Tim Roberts, President, and Vicki Salmon, Chair, Litigation Committee, Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys; Henry Carr QC, Chair, Intellectual Property Bar Association); 3.30pm (Dr Christian Gassauer-Fleissner, Chairman of European Patents Lawyers Association -- EPLAW) 

* Next Wednesday 1 February, 2.30pm (Baroness Wilcox, Parliamentary Secretary, and officials, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills).

These sessions, which will be held in a Committee Room at the House of Commons, are open to the public. You should be able to watch them since they're being streamed by Parliament TV (which you can access here).  The IPKat hopes that lots of people will be watching, though he has a slight misapprehension that, if more than three people try to watch it at the same time, the whole system will crash.  Merpel adds: if the camera is panning the audience as well as the participants, viewers might get a glimpse of Annsley the AmeriKat, who is selflessly yielding any prospect of pleasure on this, her birthday afternoon, by attending this vitally serious session.

Recent publications.  British Brands, the newsletter of the British Brands Group, has just released its most recent newsletter, which leads with a feature on the Dulux dog (left), a successful brand which is now in its 50th year.  Maybe not a shaggy dog but definitely a bit hangdog these days is Welsh international soccer star and Manchester United stalwart Ryan Giggs (right), who graces the cover of the current issue of Informa's Intellectual Property Magazine: Giggsy's trial by social media. The cover story, by Lewis Silkin LLP's Jonathan Coad and Sadiq Tajbhai, compares social media treatment of named and shamed celebrities with the placing of miscreants in the village stocks, to have rotten cyber-fruit thrown at them.

Around the weblogs.  Munich-based US and European patent attorney Robert Lelkes has just launched a brand new blog with what has a preumably limited life-span, the AIA Monitor (subtitled Tracking Implementation of the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act). The IPKat hopes that, once implemented, the AIA will provide enough food for thought to persuade Robert to keep it going, though.  Soon to be published in JIPLP itself but now available to all on the jiplp weblog is Amanda Scarmaglia's analysis of the split decision in Australia concerning Bodum's right to monopolise a particular manifestation of a coffee plunger.

Strange advertisements.  Readers of this morning's Cat the Kat post, "The Wheels on the Birss ..." may have followed the link to "The Wheels on the Bus", here.  The link led to a performance by the GiggleBellies (right) of the popular children's song of that name, accompanied by an on-the-bus cartoon sequence.  This Kat is wondering if something went wrong with Google's fabled targeted advertising software, since the song sequence was accompanied by advertisements for (i) a dating agency, (ii) assistance in giving up smoking and (iii) an MSc in Marketing.  Can any reader explain?

Are you a UK-based IP practitioner who is interested in salaries? If so, you may enjoy completing a survey which Fellows & Associates is conducting and which has already received responses from more than 100 of your professional colleagues and/or competitors.  SOLO IP plugged it yesterday here, where you will find a link to the whole caboodle.  And while on the subject of jobs, this Kat has recently received a call from BraveNewTalent, which appears to be a sort of social-networking find-yourself-a-job and/or recruitment community; he understands that this embraces a Solicitors Skills community. If any readers of this weblog have experience of BraveNewTalent that they wish to share, the Kat looks forward to hearing from them.

Some live, unexploded haggis

On 7 February LES Scotland is delighted to welcome Mary-Ellen Field and Paul Carlyle as a guest speakers at the LES Scotland Burns Supper 2012. Technically Burns Night is celebrated on 25 January but it seems that our canny IP cousins from the North have applied for and been granted a 14-day extension. The venue is the enchanting Barceló Hotel, Edinburgh, which the Bawdy Bard would surely have immortalised in verse had he lived another 216 years. Star attractions, apart from the haggis, are the outspoken and well-shod Leveson Inquiry survivor Mary-Ellen Field and Miss Paul Carlyle's Presentation on Image Rights [Merpel queries: shouldn't that read "Don't Miss ..."?].  Registration details here.  If you like bagpipes click here. If you don't, click here.

Civil service training is particularly rigorous
for those engaged in IP policy. But the IPKat
is still uncertain: is the Hooper the person who
holds the hoop or the soul who jumps through it?

Promotion, palace coup, digital exchange: renewed call for evidence. If you tweet "Esther Bernaldo de Quiros, Policy Adviser and Project Support, Digital Copyright Exchange Feasibility Study Secretariat", you will have used 119 of your 140 allotted characters. But never mind, Esther B de Q [not to be confused with B & Q, warns Merpel] is now a name for IP enthusiasts in the UK to conjure with.  Having replaced Jo Sampson in the DCE secretariat [Is this a promotion? A palace coup? An Arsene Wenger substitution? A Digital Copyright Secretariat Exchange? Merpel demands to know] wants to introduce herself as the new contact for Richard Hooper, Ros Lynch and any DCE-related enquiries. More importantly , she wants to double check [how typical of civil servants to do everything twice!] that we have all received the call for Evidence that her office issued in December.  All you need to know, if you want to submit evidence, can be gleaned by a quick visit here.  If you're going to respond, Esther asks you to email your evidence with a completed response sheet to HooperSecretariat@ipo.gov.uk no later than Friday 10 February. If, like most ordinary mortals, you have no idea what the UK government deems to be "open and transparent evidence for policy", you will be relieved to discover that this mysterious concept is demystified here.