Thursday thingies

The Kats' credo ...

IPKat events: a couple of updates. Today's KatChat between Christopher Rennie-Smith and fellow Kat-blogger Darren Smyth about what really goes on in the European Patent Office Appeal Boards, among other things, has still a couple of spare spaces thanks to late cancellations, and we've accommodated the people who were already on our reserve list.   Details are here. If you are making a last-minute decision to come, can you email the IPKat at theipkat@gmail.com by noon today and let him know.   Moving forward to Tuesday 16 September, the joint IPKat and IP Finance dialogue between Kat-blogger Neil Wilkof and Intellectual Asset Management editor Joff Wild about patent values and how patent litigation affects them now has 33 people signed up -- so there's plenty of room if you're curious to attend.  You're find the details on the IP Finance blog here.

Crowds aren't always
educationally advantageous

Not just Kat events ...  Don't forget to check the IPKat's Forthcoming Events page from time to time. Now that the autumn has arrived, there are plenty of new events for your delectation.  Some of these events feature members of this blog team, or are organised by them; others carry registration fee discounts for blog readers. Some are even free.  And while we're on the subject of events, we posted a note on Monday that fellow Kat Eleonora's e-LAWnora consultancy was offering a discreet and bespoke limited-attendance seminar on the fabulous world of EU copyright (details here).  Demand for places was far greater than supply, so Eleonora is running the event again on 23 September, in the offices of London-based law firm RPC.  If you're thinking of attending, just click here.

Whatever happened to Astellas? This is the question which the IPKat posed last Friday, on learning that Case C-661/13 Astellas Pharma Inc. v Polpharma SA Pharmaceutical Works, a reference to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) of some questions relating to the so-called Bolar exemption, which spares some sorts of use of someone else's patent for experimental purposes from being a patent infringement.  Via Katfriend and occasional contributor Paul England (Taylor Wessing) we have now heard the fate of that case from his colleague  Anja Lunze (katpat!). Says Anja:

"According to Christoph de Coster (TaylorWessing Germany, Munich) who handled the case for Polpharma, Astellas waived all claims still pending before the Düsseldorf Appeal Court. Accordingly the Düsseldorf Appeal Court accepted the appeal and overruled the Düsseldorf District Court decisions as far as appealed. As a consequence, the Düsseldorf Appeal Court withdrew the questions referred to the CJEU (since they were no longer relevant for the decision of the case) and the matter was removed from the register by the CJEU". 

Thanks, guys!

CISAC congratulations.  This Kat notes with pleasure that Gadi Oron has been appointed Director General of the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers (CISAC), based in Paris.  He recalls Gadi from Queen Mary College days as a sweet, polite and always diplomatic student, someone with whom it's always worth having a chat and a coffee.  Good luck, Gadi, in your new role.

Around the weblogs. The World Trademark Review's blog caught the Kat's eye earlier this week with news that President Barack Obama has taken time off from his golfing commitments to nominate a new IP czar (technically "Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator"), Kilpatrick Townsend's Daniel Marti, though Merpel thinks he got back to the links in time to avoid choosing a new Director for the United States Patent and Trademark Office.  The 1709 Blog carries the results of the black-crested macaque selfie sidebar poll, which turned out to less exciting than some of us had hoped, on account of so many people agreeing that no copyright existed at all in works created by animals [this Kat wonders whether this might be another nail in the much-cited dictum of Petersen J in University of London Press Limited v University Tutorial Press Ltd [1916] 2 Ch. 601 that "what is worth copying is prima facie worth protecting"].  Finally, SOLO IP reports that, for every 100 jobs in the legal services sector, 67 jobs are created outside the legal service sector -- so whose jobs are we creating?

Next month the IP Factor, Israeli patent attorney Michael Factor's always interesting and sometimes highly outspoken weblog, celebrates its 10th birthday.  This Kat will be speaking at the event, in an unusual-sounding venue, Cinema City, Ramot HaSharon, Israel.  The event is billed as a PCTea-Party and this Kat's talk, on protecting and exploiting IP, inspired by the book of Ecclesiastes, is entitled "A time to sow and a time to reap". If you are in the area, do drop in: the kettle will be bubbling away.  Click here for registration details.