Wednesday whimsies

IP and Fashion: coming soon.  This Kat and his friends are greatly looking forward to next month's IP in the Fashion Industry conference, at which a number of IP personalities, including several bloggers, will be airing their views -- whether fashionable or a bit avant-garde -- to a London audience.  This Kat is gratified to learn that registrations are coming in quite nicely, thank you, but the governing principle of "the more, the merrier" still prevails.  The date is 16 October, the details are here. See you there?

Pat-in-the-Box. The IPKat's friends in the AIPPI's United Kingdom cell are excited to announce their forthcoming event on the Patent Box, at the cosy London office of patent attorneys Carpmaels, at precisely 6pm on 14 October. The proper title is "Patent Box and ATL credits: The First Six Months - A Success?" and the speakers are the all-too-infrequent IP Finance blogger Anne Fairpo (13 Old Square) and Kevin Phillips (no relation to this blogger) of Baker Tilly. Full details and registration are available here.

Fame is the Purr.  The IPKat has stumbled across a decision earlier this year from the Federal Court, Canada, in Pfizer Canada Inc. v Pharmascience Inc. 2013 FC 120, dating back to 4 February. To his joy he has discovered that this blog has received a gratifying judicial plug from the Honourable Mr Justice Hughes:

"[74] It appears that the patent draughtsman is endeavouring to take advantage of two worlds; narrow and broad. In patent academic circles, this has sometimes been referred to as the “Angora Cat” approach as noted by Lord Justice Jacob in European Central Bank v Document Security Systems Inc, [2008] EWCA Civ 192, where he said, at paragraph 5 of the report:

Professor Mario Franzosi likens a patentee to an Angora cat. When validity is challenged, the patentee says his patent is very small: the cat with its fur smoothed down, cuddly and sleepy. But when the patentee goes on the attack, the fur bristles, the cat is twice the size with teeth bared and eyes ablaze”.

[75] A full description of Professor Franzosi’s recipe respecting parties and Angora cats can be found at:

http://ipkitten.blogspot.com-uk/2010/01/more-on-that-angora-cat.html"

[UPDATE [Sic] Link is actually http://ipkitten.blogspot.co.uk/2010/01/more-on-that-angora-cat.html Thanks Andy J for pointing this out.]

Thank you so much! It's good to know that the judges take notice of us, since we spend so much time taking of notice of them.

New faces ...  New bloggers have been cutting their teeth in recent days, none more eloquently than the excellent and erudite Rebecca Giblin, whose 1709 Blog debut post on collective copyright trolling can be enjoyed here. Elsewhere, the renaissance of the SOLO IP blog continues apace with two guest posts from Sally Cooper and one from Michael Factor -- both of whom have now joined the team togethe with another 1709 Blogger, Asim Singh. Another new face, Nottingham University's Andrea Tosato, has joined the IP Finance where he will augment the blog with his expertise in IP tax avoidance measures. STOP PRESS: Andrea has just this moment posted his first piece, on corporate tax avoidance and the Double Irish Dutch Sandwich. 


... and a not-so-new face.  From the IPKat's Australian friend, artist and resale royalty rights critic John Walker, comes news that George Brandis has been appointed as that country's new Liberal Arts minister.Says John:

Mr Brandis is a lawyer by trade and was the arts minister in the coalition government which, in 2006, rejected art resale royalties (ARR) as being unworkable or non-viable. The big limiting parameter/problem is that the funding allocated to the scheme's set-up has run out -- or is about to -- and it is not able to pay for itself.  How this will play out is a interesting question. However, the coalition has no face to lose upon the failure of a scheme that was the love-child of the rather unpopular previous government.

John adds that Mr Brandis has stated that the new Government will wait until the post-implementation review of the ARR scheme is complete before it does anything.

Can you benefit from the Brief?  Katfriend and fellow blogger Shireen Smith (Azrights) is organising a two-hour Essential Intellectual Property Briefing Seminar on 11 October in Islington, North London, for branding agencies, marketers, web designers, business advisers and similarly-inclined professional folk who may be at risk of suffering damage to their reputations and/or exposure to unwanted litigation for making an error of judgment when creating a new brand or website or when giving strategic business advice with an IP flavour. If you are interested, here's the place to click.  Registration is a snip at £40. Speed is advised since Shireen is limiting attendance to just 12 people -- though this Kat hears that, if there's enough interest, she will run a further Brief.

A Doctor writes ...  Last week's Katpost "Upsetting the Applecart? An Apple a Delay Keeps the Trade Mark Away", here, contained numerous Kat comments concerning questions referred (in German) to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), but translated into English and published by the UK's Intellectual Property Office.  This Kat has since received an extremely helpful comment from his venerable friend and IP Hall of Fame inductee Dr Alexander von Mühlendahl, who informs him that the questions from the German Bundespatengericht and their translations had not yet been made available from the Curia website. This is significant, since the Kat's comments were directed at the available English translation and not at the original German.   Alexander adds:

"Q4 actually asks not for the "scale" but the "scope" of protection ("Schutzumfang"). When reading the reasons (in German) for the reference, it becomes clear that the question is whether registration may be obtained for the applicant's own goods sold at retails, or only for third-party goods. The question is purely theoretical, because the list of goods and services is -- as would be expected -- not limited to the applicant's own goods sold at retail. Readers reading German are referred to the publication of the references in the APPLE case (and the companion NETTO case)in the September issue of GRUR, and the "Anmerkung" produced by me".

Thanks so much!