Thursday thingies

Iraqi instrument of accession

From ISIS to IP.  Never mind the war, the hard-pressed government of Iraq has taken a little time out from its fight for survival against the impending ISIS-proclaimed caliphate which is swelling up within its troubled borders in order to make some subtle adjustments to its international trade mark commitments.  According to Singapore Notification No. 41,

"The Director General of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) presents his compliments to the Minister for Foreign Affairs and has the honor to notify the deposit by the Government of the Republic of Iraq, on August 29, 2014, of its instrument of accession to the Singapore Treaty on the Law of Trademarks, adopted at Singapore on March 27, 2006. In conformity with Article 28(3), the said Treaty will enter into force, with respect to the Republic of Iraq, on November 29, 2014".

This Kat is impressed at the fact that the Iraqi government can focus on the niceties of the Singapore Treaty at a time like this; truly it is a good portent for the future.  Merpel says that sometimes even the rhetoric of war is preferable to the pompous and flowery circumlocution of peace, since -- unlike formal diplomatic prose such as Singapore Notification No.41 and its fellows, its meaning is immediately understood by all. When, she wonders, will all that silly stuff about compliments and honour be replaced with a plain statement that Iraq has acceded to the Singapore Treaty with effect from 29 November?

Should an IP Office
be one big family?

Nepotism is a word that exercises a fascination among those who abhor corruption, those who believe that employment criteria should be based on merit, and those who are really and truly hoping that an influential family member will be able to get them a job.  The United States Patent and Trademark Office has just been reportedly faced with a case of alleged nepotism on the part of one of its Commissioners, the outcome being reported by the Washington Times (here, with a katpat to Chris Torrero for the link).  This leads Merpel to speculate as to what might have been the outcome, had the same set of facts occurred in the European Patent Office.  This Kat is saying nothing, but Merpel observes that "Nepotism" comes quite close to being an anagram of (you guessed it?), Eponia.

Around the weblogs.  The IP Finance weblog has been increasingly active of late, surely a sign of increased recognition of the importance of intellectual property as an asset class, with all that this entails.  Janice Denoncourt returns from Japan with a guest post on a conference on IP, venture capital and the building of innovation ecosystems; Coller IP's Jackie Coller then addresses the informational aspects of that ecosystem with a pertinent contribution to the discussion following last year's Banking on IP? report. Not to be outdone, Mike Mireles reviews a proposal to put the US patent system to rights by abolishing the Court of Appeal for the Federal Circuit -- but would this really deal with patent troll problems?  Elsewhere, PatLit notes the latest stage in the fascinating dispute between Vringo and ZTE over the "yes-it-is, no-it-isn't" patent infringement by sort-of-adhering to a technical standard, announces the British guidelines on the implementation of a Bolar-style defence to patent infringement claim for the benefit of researchers and explains a decision in which a US Federal Court sticks closely to the US Supreme Court's recent ruling on computer-implemented inventions in Alice v CLS Bank.  On the 1709 Blog, John Enser marks a bit of a reshuffle of IP responsibilities within the European Commission.  Finally, the Class 99 design law blog gives space to a very recent General Court ruling on some things that most of us have never thought much about: the individual character, scope for design freedom and identity of the informed user of a cookie (half of which is illustrated above, right).

The rubric for the TIPLO dinner event
is silent on the subject of dress code ...

While the word "dinner" -- one of the Kats' favourites -- is indelibly associated in this Kat's mind with TIPLO (the London-based Intellectual Property Lawyers Organisation), he is shocked and somewhat disappointed to see that the d-word appears only four times on the announcement of that excellent body's forthcoming event. "Life Sciences innovation, regulation and IP imperatives - striking the right balance" is the title; the date is Tuesday 14 October 2014 and the venue is The Old Court Room, Lincoln's Inn, London. In the chair is the perspicacious David Rosenberg (Vice President of IP Policy, at GlaxoSmithKline) and, if he supplies some spice, the main courses are furnished by Sir Alasdair Breckenridge (former Chairman of the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency and also of the Committee on Safety of Medicines)  and Peter Feldschreiber (a barrister-physician and a Jolly Good Fellow of the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Medicine).  Go on, spoil yourself and register here, says the IPKat.  Merpel feels sure that, with all these pharma folk around, you should be able to find some relief for ancillary heartburn or hangover ...

"Copyright: if I could change just one thing …" is an attractive-looking programme brought to you by the curious combination of law firm Baker & McKenzie, United Nations agency WIPO and bastion of scholarship Kings College, London.  The date: Tuesday 7 October 2014, 6.45 - 8.30 pm; the venue: the Anatomy Theatre, KCL's Strand Campus. Ostensibly to mark the upcoming launch of the 2014 edition of the Collecting Societies Handbook, jointly published by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and Baker & McKenzie [what? you haven't read the previous edition ...?], the organisers bring together a panel of experts from across the copyright community who will share their views on what they would change if they could change just one thing about copyright. Confirmed event participants include Mr Justice Birss, Trevor Clarke, Bernt Hugenholtz, Peter Leathem, Cedric Manara and Javier Ruiz.  For more details and registration, click here.  If you can't attend, you can still submit questions "from anywhere in the world" via Twitter using #changeonething.

Earlier this year, Annabelle Gauberti told the Kats all about an event she was organising this July on the law of luxury goods and how to market your goods through celebrities and  music bands. This event was under the auspices of ialci which, if you didn't know, is the international association of lawyers for the creative industries and who don't like using capital letters.  Annabelle now writes to let us know that she has put online the various videos of each presentation, for those people who could not attend the seminar.  An article that summarises this seminar and provides links to each video presentation can be accessed here.