Monday miscellany II

According to a press release late last week, headed "Corporate Britain out of tune on software theft", this Kat has learned that the third annual whistleblower’s survey by the Federation Against Software Theft (FAST) reveals that two-thirds of persons polled wouldn’t report software piracy in the workplace.  This poll, conducted earlier this month, surveyed 200 office workers to gauge their attitudes towards software piracy and whistleblowing.  Most, it seems, would be happy to take a lax approach to software theft at the office. Of those that would not blow the whistle, one-third (36 per cent) stated that they wouldn’t report it in order to protect their jobs, 16 per cent to protect their reputations, and a further 30 per cent simply didn’t care. A sizeable minority (14 per cent) cited concerns about negative media coverage about whistleblowers as a reason why they wouldn’t blow the whistle.

This Kat is delighted to hear that the fourth edition of  the Taylor Wessing Global Intellectual Property Index (GIPI) will soon be with us.  GIPI seeks to provide a comprehensive assessment of how the intellectual property regimes of 36 jurisdictions compare, taking account of more than 14,000 jurisdiction assessments from senior industry figures.  The idea is to juggle a bunch of 50 objective factors in order to weigh up the national laws and procedures for patents, trade marks, copyrights, designs and privacy/personal data protection in relation to obtaining, exploiting, enforcing and attacking.  This time round, GIPI has included 12 new jurisdictions, including Chile, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland and Thailand. The 4th edition will be launched on 12 November. If you want further details, or just fancy trying to scrounge an early-morning breakfast from Taylor Wessing, email Sarah Le Cheminant at S.LeCheminant@taylorwessing.com.

Long and Kerly.  Kerly's Law of Trade Marks and Trade Names has been in print since 1894, which makes it one of the longest-lived titles in the field of intellectual property law. It's now in its 15th edition, which is just in the process of being augmented by its 1st Supplement.  Hold your breath: it's going to set you back £125 -- though if you've already paid £350 for 15th edition, you can probably afford it.  Authors are James Mellor QC, David Llewelyn, Thomas Moody-Stuart, David Keeling and Iona Berkeley and you can be sure that they've plenty to say about not just UK trade mark law but EU trade mark law too.

Does Paris have a future?  This year's Arthur Watts public international law seminar series, sponsored by Volterra Fietta, is throwing up a delicious event for IP enthusiasts: it's a seminar, "The Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property: Past and Present -- but is there a Future?"  It's coming up on 4 November in London, with contributions from Katfriends Sam Ricketson, Tanya Aplin and Tomoko Miyamoto (head of WIPO's Patent Law Section), not to mention his very old friend Jill Barrett.  Click here for further details and registration.

Passing off and Unfair Competition is the theme of the third event held jointly by the Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice and its German cousins at GRUR Int.  This exciting programme, scheduled for 23 January 2014, now has 65 registrants -- and the number is rising daily.  If you'd like to attend this thought-provoking event, which is free, you can get full details from jiplp, the JIPLP weblog, here.