Friday fantasies

Friday is the day for checking the IPKat's forthcoming events page. Do take a peep: you never know what you might find: education, stimulation, elucidation, romance, a new job, useful professional and commercial pointers ...

On the subject of forthcoming events, the Class 99 weblog (to which this Kat is a regular contributor), in conjunction with the Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys (CIPA), is hosting a somewhat opportunistic seminar when it catches US design law enthusiast Perry Saidman en route from Oxford to Silver Spring and gets him going on his subject of choice, "Life After Egyptian Goddess".  Date, details and dynamics of this delightful date with destiny can be found here.

Another forthcoming event is a symposium on "What constitutes evidence for copyright policy", a topic which has much exercised the minds of those copyright owners (and lobbyists) who have been racking their brains to work out what is meant by "evidence" in the context of IP law reform in general and copyright law in particular.  Details of this appealing and important event -- which takes place down in Bournemouth on 8 November -- are available here.

Betting -- is it evidence-
based, or founded on
a blend of skill and
intuition?

If you were one of the hundreds of eager souls who attended Allen & Overy LLP's recent Business of Law seminar, "Your invention? My creation! Intellectual Property – a new “bet the company” battleground" last month, you will be pleased to know that a report has now been made available online here.  Bearing in mind the item immediately above this one, this Kat notes the following observation from the seminar report:

Rather than harmonisation for its own sake, the emphasis should be on using an evidence-based approach to work out which bits of national or regional systems work well and take that best practice to drive “convergence”

But surely that would be too easy -- and too sensible -- to appeal to anyone outside the tight circle of people who know, work with and care about intellectual property.

A feline slave to popular demand, this Kat has been asked to give a mention to the CIPA Life Sciences Conference 2012, which takes place next month in the stately location of Luton Hoo.  Sadly, there is not suggestion anywhere in the programme that table football is to feature -- so those whose hopes for CIPA events have been raised by its recent Congress may be sadly brought down to earth [never mind, says Merpel, where there's life science, there's hope ...].  You can take a peep at the programme here, and indeed even register.