Monday miscellany

Reproduction: not just a matter of rights ...

The IPKat and his friends on the 1709 Blog were quick off the mark in covering the exciting news from Italy concerning its speedy mechanism for online copyright enforcement: Eleonora Rosati posted "Italian Communication Authority issues online copyright enforcement regulation (at last)" here on the 1709 Blog, while guest blogger Alberto Bellan penned "Italian Communication Authority issues its regulation on (fast-issimo) online copyright enforcement" for this weblog, here. Great stuff! And now the Kat family wonders whether it has a reader or two at the International Federation of Reproduction Rights Organisations, IFRRO, which subsequently covered the same news here.

From Rubal Walia comes news of a mobile app which INDUS TechInnovations has recently launched to carry out IP analytics. The company, a startup based in Bangalore as well as San Francisco, says it's the first to introduce a comprehensive analytics app for patent data. Rubal adds: "You can download the app for free at m.relecura.com". Do get in touch with him if you want further information.  Relecure's website is www.relecura.com.

Introducing Operation Ninja STAR. This Kat has just been reading about the latest adventures of Article One Partners (AOP), who have excitedly announced their new crowdfunding campaign, "Operation Ninja STAR".  According to AOP's promotional material,

"The goal of this campaign is to launch the Ninja "Startup Troll Attack Resource" (or Ninja S.T.A.R., for short). This will be a free database [the IPKat's favourite sort] that small companies can use to help defend against patent trolls. We will launch with one patent, which will be the first in a series of Ninja STAR patents. With your help, we can show patent trolls that frivolous lawsuits won't be tolerated.

Patent trolls are asserting their patents against numerous startups who can’t afford to fight. But we can help. We have resources and experience that enable us to find this evidence. We’d like to make this evidence available to startups or others threatened by the patent free of charge - but we need your support. Our $17,500 crowdfunding goal will get this off the ground as a pilot project and lay the groundwork for a larger impact on the startup community through launching the online database. This approach has never been done before, and we believe it can work. If it does, this will be just the beginning". 

This Kat has long been fascinated by the concepts of crowdsourcing and crowdfunding in intellectual property, not just in patents but beyond, and is curious to know how this will all work out.  If any reader has any direct experience of Operation Ninja STAR, this Kat would love to be kept informed.

Readers of the IP Finance weblog may remember this recent post on Greg Sidak's article on the meaning of fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) licences and royalties.  Well, former guest Kat Norman Siebrasse, together with University of Minnesota law professor Tom Cotter (left), are co-blogging a series of posts on Greg's article. You'll find them on Tom's website Comparative Patent Remedies.  The first two posts, both by Norman, cover the ex ante incremental approach, here, and the ex ante contingent incremental value approach, here. These are not quick and easy reads: they are evidence that there is no incompatibility between the relative informality of IP blogging and the highest standards of academic scholarship.

Mediabeak is back. A full 10 years on from the launch of the first Mediabeak blog, Mediabeak is back! This blog has had a bit of an up-and-down existence over the past decade but, with blogmeister Ed Forbes fuelled with enthusiasm, it's getting quite lively again.  If you want to see what Ed is up to, just click here.


The Competition Law Association is pleased to announce details of the 2014 Golding Essay Prize competition, which is open to any student, trainee solicitor, pupil barrister, devil barrister (from Scotland) who is not yet a qualified lawyer, or any trainee patent and trade mark attorney.  This year's topic is: “To what extend should Courts take jurisdiction over infringement of foreign IP rights?”  As the CLA explains

Lucasfilm: how far
does jurisdiction go?

"In a number of recent decisions the courts have held that claims under foreign IP rights are justiciable in the national courts. For example, in Lucasfilm v Ainsworth [2011] UKSC 39 the Supreme Court held that acts of copyright infringement in a non-EU country under foreign copyrights can be determined by the English courts. Similarly in Actavis v Eli Lilly [2013] EWCA Civ 517, the Court of Appeal confirmed that the English courts have jurisdiction to hear claims for declarations of non-infringement in relation to foreign designations of European patents where there is no challenge to validity. Similarly, in C-616/10 Solvay v Honeywell [2012] ECR I-0000 the CJEU supported the Dutch courts' willingness to grant preliminary injunctions to prevent the infringement of foreign patents. 

But is this expansionist approach correct as a matter of policy, when should foreign IP rights be enforced, and how should courts approach the interface between substantive and procedural law including foreign approaches to calculating damages for infringement?"

The essay must be of a maximum length of 5,000 words (inclusive of footnotes) and the closing date for submission of entries is 30 April 2014. There are plenty of entry rules and no link to them on the CLA website so, if you really want to enter, email Sharon Horwitz here and she'll tell you what you need to know.


Finally, if you are in competition mode ... take a look at this.  The INTA's celebrated Ladas Memorial Award Competition's deadline has been extended and, for students at any rate, it's plain that you don't have to be a US student (eligibility matters are highlighted in red, below).  This Kat calls on all able-bodied potential candidates to get writing -- particularly those from that faraway place called The Rest of the World.

	Deadline extended! Submit your paper by February 7, 2014!
	INTA’s Ladas Memorial Award Competition—open to students, professors and practitioners—leave your mark on the industry and get published along the way.
	INTA is still seeking submissions for both the Student Category and the Professional Category. Submit your paper today and compete to join this distinguished group of winners whose scholarship has contributed to advancing the field of trademark law. Entering the competition is as easy as filling out an online application and submitting your paper. Student Category Eligible students must be enrolled as either a full or part-time law or graduate student. For students outside the United States, university enrollment is acceptable. Professional Category Authors may be legal practitioners, business professionals and/or academics. No restrictions apply regarding level of experience or years in practice. Winners Award winners will be announced in April 2014. Winning papers are published in The Trademark Reporter, INTA’s legal journal. Each winner receives: U.S. $2,000 Stephen P. Ladas’s three-volume treatise, Patents, Trademarks, and Related Rights A complimentary registration to the 2014 Annual Meeting. The student winner is reimbursed up to $1,000 for travel to the meeting [if you've never attended the INTA Annual meeting, don't miss this chance. It's a life-changing experience ...]. Please visit www.inta.org/ladas or email ladasaward@inta.org with questions.