Tuesday tiddlywinks

As the Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys (CIPA) Congress looms ever closer -- it's taking place on 11 and 12 October -- the speakers are beginning to sharpen their thoughts about what they'll be saying.  Not the least of them is the IPKat's friend Willem Hoyng (Hoyng Monegier, Amsterdam), who is speaking in the session on patent litigation.  Says Willem:

“The present litigation system is unsatisfactory as it is in general difficult to address European-wide infringement in an efficient way. This is due to unfortunate decisions of the ECJ in GAT-LUK and Primus-Roche (on which see earlier Katpost here). With a wise ECJ all the stuff we talk about today would have been superfluous. 

In my CIPA Congress paper I shall explain briefly the present proposals for the litigation system and say something about the procedural rules and the work of the Committee who drafted these rules. I will try to solicit some adverse reactions by preaching in favour of the proposed system [that sounds easy enough ...], by asking the UK and German audience to forget their idea that they have the best litigation system [... but this will be a tall order ...], by asking the litigators to stop worrying about their future income [.../ and this will be nearly impossible!]. There is a lot of cold water fear. In general lawyers are conservative and do not like change. We have to adopt the system and as it stands it could become a success and I will explain why. Not all European measures have a euro doom scenario! Without daring there is no future!”

If you want to hear more of what Willem has to say, you're welcome to turn up on the day.  You can check out the Congress programme here and, if the mood takes you, you can register here.

Mark your diary. While on the subject of patents in Europe, the IPKat has been reminded by his friend Micaela Modiano that a hearing date has been fixed before the Court of Justice of the European Union for the actions brought by Italy and Spain in which those lovely sun-soaked jurisdictions seek the annulment of the decision of 10 March 2011 authorising enhanced cooperation in the area of the creation of unitary patent protection.  That date is Tuesday 25 September 2012, at precisely 9.30am.  


FAST teams up with SIIA.  A recent media release announces what may turn into a significant event in the fight against software piracy.  This is the formation of a formal alliance between the Federation Against Software Theft (FAST) and the US-based Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA). The Kat's information is that:

According to the terms of the agreement, FAST and SIIA will:

• Work together to promote better intellectual property regulation, sharing best practice between the two countries to influence government and policy. 

• Support more effective enforcement against those that infringe copyright and IP ownership.

... This collaboration will benefit the membership of both parties, broadening the scope of both organisations so that work can be carried out on a global basis. This will include FAST and the SIIA assisting each other with corporate and Internet anti-piracy matters taking place within the UK, Europe, and the US on a case-by-case basis. ..."

This Kat, who believes that cooperation between businesses and their representative organisations is always likely to be more effective than cooperation between governments, will be watching to see how well this new pact works.

Central African
Republic: great flag,
shame about IP
online ...

Around the weblogs.  Afro-IP has seen two fresh blog posts already this week, one which is quite upbeat from Darren Olivier on how ready South Africa is for the gathering cloud, the other sadly downbeat from Kingsley Egbuonu on how yet another African nation -- this time the Central African Republic -- has failed to improve its official online IP services since he last conducted a virtual visit a little over a year ago.  Meanwhile, over on PatLit, IPKat team blogger Jeremy reflects on the purchase in mid-litigation of patent-owning Human Genome Sciences Inc by Glaxo SmithKline, and on IP Tango Patricia Covarrubia previews a forthcoming seminar in Brazil on IP and sport, as the country prepares itself for the next soccer world cup (2014) and summer Olympics (2016).


The ultimate deterrent.  The IPKat thanks a source who, sadly, cannot be named for this link to the details of a patent application for an invention described as an "Anti Missile", the inventor being Kumar Pramod Nanda.  According to the patent's abstract:

The IPKat: taking precautions

"This antimissile or missile for non-violence or invisible missile ... is the missile which starts WAR (War Against Rascals or Rascals Supporters) despite of WAR (War Against Rastras or Countries) and destroyed the enemies and all defense missile of all countries within a second as well as destroys Naxlas, Terrorists, Maoists, etc., no doubt, under the principle of lightening in the cloud, solar magnetic storm, coronal mass ejection, spontaneous human combustion, ball lightning, induction of charges, law of super impose and cumulative addition of charges and cutting and transportation mystery of the lightning observed in the year of 1982 of 31 st May at Nanda Research Laboratory ..."

Buried among the claims comes the following dire threat:

"It is strongly warned to whole countries of the world like USA, Europe, Russia, German, France, Britain, China, Pakistan & India etc. to destroy their all missiles, atom bombs, nuclear bombs etc. before December 31st of year 2012 [Merpel says, you'd better note this date if you were thinking of going away for the New Year]. Otherwise all will go to be destroyed causing the colossal loss since it is going to strongly be activated from the year of 2013 of lsl January and onwards and well come to the Age of Truth (Satya Yuga) by backing the Age of False (Mithya Yuga or Kali Yuga).

In this missile the mystery of Spontaneous Human Combustion, (SHC) of body / objects' combustion with independent principle of space and time relationship principle is also interacted for accomplish such wonderful anti missile. Spontaneous human combustion is a name used to describe cases of burning of living human body without an external source of ignition.... This machine is accomplished by two main machines viz (1) Remote enemy sensatory and killing machine. (2) Remote missile and RDX, explosive, bombs, petrochemicals, gas etc. sensatory and destroying machine remained from the finite or infinite distance of the target".

This Kat is just off now to take a look at the prior art ...