Monday miscellany

The World Customs Organization (WCO) is delighted to announce that its global network of track and trace and authentication solutions is now up and running with eight new members. As the WCO explains:

IPM [which stands for Interface PUBLIC-MEMBERS] is the WCO’s online tool used to identify and thwart counterfeiters. This tool enables rights holders, faced with counterfeiting of their brands, to exchange information with field customs officers, in real-time. The new version of IPM integrates two major technical developments: a hand-held mobile device, and the ability to interface IPM with authentication and/or traceability solutions companies. 

Using a mobile device, field Customs officers can instantly verify a product’s authenticity simply by scanning the barcode or any track and trace solution and IPM will automatically launch the authentication application. 

The following companies are now officially IPM Connected and working with the WCO in its on-going effort to combat illicit trade and the growing threat it poses to our society and economy: Advanced Track & Trace, Authenticateit, CertiEye, Certilogo, Holoptica, PharmaSecure, Sicpa, Systech International [Merpel wonders: how does anyone get to join this list? Does anyone know?]. 

This first set of security solutions providers currently addresses multiple industries such as Pharmaceutical, Automotive, Food & Beverage, Healthcare, Textile, and Luxury goods. Each member delivers original solutions involving the scan of a code or an image with a smartphone, enabling customs officers to instantly validate product authenticity. 

The WCO’s new global network of track and trace and authentication solutions offers many advantages for both customs officers and brand owners, above all safer, faster and more economical security clearance of products. The WCO therefore encourages all databases, sources of information, authentication or traceability solutions which could help Customs officers in their fight against counterfeiting to interface with IPM and become IPM Connected.

Around the weblogs.  Working as a sole IP practitioner? All by yourself? SOLO IP looks at partying alone, here. On the 1709 Blog, Ben Challis signs off with the last CopyCat column of the year and, as ever, it's a cracker! Class 46 hosts a salutary warning to trade mark owner (in this case, Montblanc) that, even in jurisdiction that is not always synonymous with speed, delay in seeking injunctive can be fatal; equally fatal is the fact that the defendant's activity doesn't infringe.  On Afro-IP, Caroline NCube's series on African states' IP policy takes her alphabetically from Cameroon to Comoros. Finally, there's yet another excellent analysis from Stefano Barazza on PatLit, this time in the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruling in AstraZeneca v Hanmi (the 'Nexium' case).  Congratulations are to due to former guest Kat Stefano, who has just been appointed a member of the Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice editorial board.

Katfriend Claire Lazenby is not only a very fine exponent of the subtleties of trade mark practice; she is also highly knowledgeable.  She enriched this Kat's brain data earlier this week by informing him that Joan Fontaine (right), the only actress to win an Oscar for a performance directed by Alfred Hitchcock, and who died earlier this week, was raised in the no-doubt inspirational bosom of an intellectual property family: her father, a patent attorney, had his own patent practice in Japan, where Joan was born in 1917.  A quick read through Joan Fontaine's bio details cleared up a little mystery that has troubled him for years: why did he always confuse Joan Fontaine with Olivia de Havilland (it being the former, not the latter, who appeared in the all-time classic Rebecca)? The answer is that the two actresses were sisters, so Olivia came from an IP family too.

Katfriend and intellectual property enthusiast (not to mention chartered patent attorney, European patent attorney and European trade mark attorney) Michael Jewess has been particularly busy of late: he has been writing a book. A review copy is believed to be joggling along, shoulder to shoulder with the Christmas cards and Amazon deliveries that make up the bulk of this week's terrestrial mail.  Meanwhile, for those who cannot wait to discover a bit about this publication, this is what Mike can tell you about it:

"This substantial work (xxviii plus 516 pages) was published by CIPA in autumn 2013 (£40, £35 for CIPA members [Hmm, says Merpel, CIPA members should know by now what's inside intellectual property. If they don't they should have to pay more, as a punishment ...]). The book seeks to show how overall policy and strategy in intellectual property translates into day-to-day legal practice, and encourages practitioners to take an assertive, broad, and businesslike view of the needs of the client but without compromise of professional ethics and principles. It will in addition be a valuable resource for academics and policy-makers".

Details of the book, its full contents and how to order it can be found be clicking here.