Monday miscellany

Visionary judge reflects. "IPEC: Reflections from HHJ Hacon on the first six months" is the title of an exciting event which the AIPPI UK is holding on 22 May 2014.  The speaker is none other than His Honour Judge Hacon of the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court who will, it is promised provide an insight into the differences between the IPEC and its dearly-beloved and recently-departed ancestor the Patents County Court.  Richard Hacon will also reflect on the cases heard during the cheap-and-cheerful court's first six months, setting out his vision for how business in the IPEC will proceed in the future. The venue is the London office of Hogan Lovells International LLP (50 Holborn Viaduct, London, EC1A 2FG), which has kindly offered to provide drinks afterwards. The event starts early, at 5 pm, to enable registrants to go off to enjoy themselves elsewhere afterwards.  Attendance is free for AIPPI UK members and new applicants for membership, but £25 for non-members. CPD 1.5hrs. For further details and registration, click here. If you are someone's secretary or PA, be sure to register in the name of the person who is supposed to be going and not in your own name, or you'll be the one who gets the CPD points.

Around the weblogs.  On SOLO IP, Barbara Cookson asks if trade mark assignments have to be contracts.  Ben Challis provides yet another thumpingly entertaining CopyKat round-up on the 1709 Blog.  Afro-IP new recruit Jeremy Speres offers a somewhat depressing piece about the route to getting decent damages for trade mark infringement in South Africa. For those whose love of patents is only matched by their enthusiasm for Latin, PatLit offers a note on a European Patent Office Board of Appeal ruling back in 2012 that has been recently unearthed by PLC and deals with a topic we're all talking about -- reformatio in peius.  Finally, on Class 46, our former Kat colleague Mark Schweizer gives a helpful insight into a recent Swiss decision on genuine use of a trade mark for consumer goods in the Koala's March case.

2020 visionaries or 20-20 vision? Last week the United-Kingdom-based Alliance for Intellectual Property launched its manifesto, The UK in 2020: A vision for growth in IP-rich businesses, and called on all of the UK's main political parties to ensure that, by 2020, the UK is the best place to start, locate and grow intellectually property (IP) rich businesses. The full document can be viewed on the Alliance's website here. In short, and for the convenience of busy readers, the manifesto calls on whichever political party(ies) form the next Government to

- create an intellectual property enforcement framework for the digital age
- monitor the value of IP businesses to the UK economy
- ensure IP is properly recognised by the investment community
- provide a detailed economic and social case when proposing changes to the IP framework
- promote UK businesses by defending them against moves to weaken IP laws at an international level

The Alliance explains that, inn arriving at these recommendations, it asked individual creators, small start-ups and multinational companies how they thought IP could be better promoted and protected. The survey found that for 98% of respondents IP was central to their growth to their growth [Merpel's most concerned about the other 2% ...] and saw a stable legal framework as important to securing investment and business planning. However, many (48%) expressed concern that the Government had not been sufficiently supportive, did not recognise the contribution that they made, and was hampering efforts to make the UK an attractive location to base a business which relies on IP.

Seasoned appointees -- .  The International Intellectual Property Institute (IIPI) has announced the appointment of two seasoned IP experts to spearhead its activities. They are Andrew Hirsch, who worked closely with Bruce Lehman at the US Department of Commerce and who has now been named IIPI's Executive Director, and Richard Litman, who is now its General Counsel. According to the IIPI, "Both will focus on IIPI’s quest to help academic, industry and government leaders to adopt the best international IP practices and models for innovation based economic and societal development".  The IPKat wishes them both the best of luck.  Merpel wants to know why this grandly-named institution seems to have so small a footprint in Europe: is she missing something?