Wednesday whimsies

Hark!  On Tuesday 1 July hearings before the Court of Justice of the European Union take place in two key pieces of litigation regarding the future of patents in Europe. The are

Hearing is the easy bit...

• Case C-146/13 Spain v Parliament and Council, this being an action for annulment of Regulation 1257/2012 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 17 December 2012 implementing enhanced cooperation in the area of the creation of unitary patent protection. This action deals with lack of legal basis for making the Regulation and breach of the principles of autonomy and uniformity in the application of European Union law;
• Case C-147/13 Spain v Council, this being an application for annulment of Regulation 1260/2012 of 17 December 2012 implementing enhanced cooperation in the area of the creation of unitary patent protection with regard to the applicable translation arrangements. This action deals with infringement of the principle of non-discrimination, lack of legal basis, infringement of the principle of legal certainty and infringement of the principle of autonomy. 

If you want to do some pre-hearing reading on the issues, take a look at Winfried Tilmann's "Spain's Action against the EU Patent Package: Arguments and Counter-Arguments in Case C-146/13", [2014] European Intellectual Property Review 2014 at pp 4-8 and "Unitary patent“ and court system – New problems ahead?", by Ingve Stjerna, which you can read in English and in German.

Tell it like it is. The IPKat's friends at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) are inviting everyone to participate in a survey assessing their perceptions of WIPO. This survey, they explain, is part of our ongoing effort to deliver the highest quality services and engagement to all of their stakeholders. The survey should take less than fifteen minutes to complete, and is available in English, French and Spanish, until 4 July 2014. All information gathered will be treated confidentially and reported in aggregate form only.

Without IP, young entrepreneurs soon turn
to self-help as the best mode of protection ...

Don't mention it ...  "Enterprise for all: the relevance of enterprise in education" is the title of a 51-page document issued in the name of Lord Young.  Billed as the third part of a UK report on enterprise and small firms, the report looks quite promising.  However, if you read it you may spot the textual equivalent of the dog that didn't bark since something regrettably is missing.  The omission was however noted by this Kat's wise friend Ruth Soetendorp who tells him: "it contains not a single reference to intellectual property, confidentiality or any aspect thereof -- essentials (one might have thought) to successful enterprise activity and easily capable of being integrated into students learning at any age or stage".  Merpel has of course done her best to prove Ruth wrong, with some success: there are actually two whole references to copyright. Alas, they read respectively "Publication copyright notice" and "© Crown copyright 2014" ...

Around the weblogs. Ben Challis posts his final pre-Glastonbury Festival CopyKat feature on the 1709 Blog, here.  Barbara Cookson writes on consultation exhaustion, why IP professionals don't enjoy being regulated and the management of client expectations, on SOLO IP here.  Over on Afro-IP, Kingsley Egbuonu explains why investor confidence is not exactly inspired by the existence of a weak IP regime, even in a busy, bustling market like that of South Africa. Class 46 carries a succinct summary by Anthonia Ghalamkarizadeh of a recent German ruling on bad faith in trade mark applications in the LIQUIDROM case.