Friday fantasies

Cutting edge for greens. Cutting edge – Green Innovations and IPR Management, edited by Andree Kirchner and Iris Kirchner-Freis, recently fell into this Kat's paws:  wouldn't it be a good idea, he thought, to pass it on to a genuinely green IP person for comment -- so he asked Kathrin Vowinckel (Olswang LLP, where she is an active member of the firm's Green Team) for her opinion of it.   This is what Kathrin says:

Cutting Edge is a welcome addition to the still very limited number of publications dealing with the ever more important issue of green/sustainable developments and IP.  According to the Preface, the editors’ desire is “guided by the understanding that we all have to continue to change our behaviour to treat and manage our natural assets on the basis of sustainability and intergenerational equity”. To meet this aim, the book is expressly directed at inventors, innovators, decision-makers, government official and lawyers. The book meets this aim by combining broad overviews over the most important IP rights such as patents, trade marks and designs with more specific – green – topics and examples/case studies such as Eco-labelling, including Nordic Eco-labelling, designs and the challenges and potentials of eco-designs, and green patents and e.g .patenting Green Polymers. 

Helpfully, the book guides the reader by first explaining the rights themselves, and then moving on to their exploitation, including e.g. technology transfers and licensing and developments in Europe such as the IP-Charta initiative [be honest, says Merpel, how many readers even knew this existed?] and IPR Management at the European Commission. Part III entitled “Green Economy” includes essays on specific green topics such as International Climate Law & Technology Transfer, and Green IT. Part IV then concludes with examples of initiatives that support Green Innovations, such as WIPO Green: The Sustainable Technology Marketplace ["Ditto!", cries Merpel] which builds on existing WIPO programs and lends support to the initiatives of other organizations (e.g. UNDP, UNEP, UNFCCC, UN Global Compact, UNIDO) [the letter 'u' appears between those brackets more frequently than in the standard English Scrabble set, notes the IPKat] and the World Bank’s Climate Technology Program.

The list of contributors is as extensive as it is impressive and – other than the editors themselves - includes practitioners, academics, policymakers and officials. The first impression of this book is that it has the potential to be a helpful resource for the practical application of IPR’s relating to green technology not only for lawyers, policymakers, agency officials, academics but also for inventors and technology companies".

Bibliographic data: Publisher: Kluwer Law International; hardcover, ISBNs 9041133445 and 9789041133441, 344 pp. Price £89. Rupture factor: sustainable. Web page here.


Bother in the Bahamas. From Serena Tierney (Consultant and Head of Intellectual Property, Bircham Dyson Bell LLP) came a slightly disconcerting piece of news earlier this week.  She told the IPKat:

"I have just received an email from CompuMark, who provide our watching service, headed 'Alert - short opposition'. As I do a lot of work in China where the notice periods are very short, I opened it to find that I was being notified of an opposition period (in the Bahamas) that expired on 3 June 2013! Luckily, my client does not need to take any action but I checked and found that the firm's time travel machine seems sadly out of order. Here is the explanation from CompuMark: 

"BAHAMAS: In the beginning of July it came to our attention that the trademarks in the Bahamas are issued in an additional publication, alongside the official publication. As a result of our new subscription to this new publication, we received journals after the expiration of the opposition deadlines. We are of the opinion that it is our duty to report any similar trademarks to you. We apologize for any inconveniences this might cause you." 

Thanks, Serena, for letting us know.  Readers who may be affected by this Bahamian practice should take note.


Lassies on the Bench.  Earlier this week, Merpel asked if the Lundbeck case was the first time an appeal in IP proceedings in the UK was heard by a predominantly female tribunal.  Lindesay M. Low (Legal Adviser to the Scotch Whisky Association) reports delightedly that Scotland got there first back in July 2008 when Ladies Paton, Smith and Dorrian, an all-female bench of the Inner House of the Court of Session (Scotland’s Civil Appeal Court), heard the appeal in the passing off case of Wise Property Care Limited v White Thomson Preservation Limited and Others. Not only was it the first all-female bench in an IP case but the first all-female bench in an appeal of any sort in Scotland.  Thanks Lindesay, you've earned your katpat!