Back in England

Back in England! IPKat blog team member is now back in Blighty after his Australia lecture tour.  He just wants to thank his fellow Kats for all their efforts in keeping the blog running smoothly -- and a separate and special "thank-you" to David Brophy for tackling a Google software issue that had many email subscribers freezing or crashing their Outlook software every time they tried clicking on to it.

Flying back today, this Kat had a lot of fun with the entertainment channel of the airline that brought him back.  One of the classic films he watched was John Huston's film noir classic from 1950, The Asphalt Jungle. While the click-through on-screen icon (left) was in colour, the film itself was in black and white -- not the colourised version that led to the celebrated French litigation over the director's moral right to resist such interference with the original -- though somehow film noir seems a strange choice of movie style to colourise.  Readers will notice that the two actors billed on the poster shown here are Sterling Hayden and Louis Calhern.  On the aircraft's movie playlist their names are dwarfed by the name of one of the minor members of the cast whose subsequent fame eclipsed theirs: Marilyn Monroe. Knowing that actors are often quite sensitive about the size of their billing and the order in which they are named, I wonder what measures, if any, are put in place to protect the reputations of those who are the "big names" when the movie is made.

"Fame is the Purr": musicians
should be named

Still playing around with the in-flight entertainment channel, this Kat discovered a wonderfully wide range of music available to the discerning listener.  On the classical music side, for example, one could enjoy not only the standard fare but also such relatively modern composers as Shostakovitch, Schoenberg,Birtwistle, Webern and Steve Reich. The music was great, but there was however something missing. While the names of the composer and the piece being played were available on-screen, there was no indication in the vast majority of cases as to the identity of the performers, whether soloists, ensembles or orchestras. Given that the name(s) of performers may provide the motivation of passengers when selecting their choice of listening, this struck this Kat is strange. In the UK the Performances (Moral Rights, etc.) Regulations 2006 (2006 No.18) gives performers the right to be named and to object to derogatory treatment, but the airline in question is not presumably governed by UK copyright law.

IP Publishers and Editors Lunch. This Tuesday's IPKat lunch for IP Publishers and Editors, looks like having a record turn-out this year, with Ashley Roughton as star speaker.  As a courtesy to this year's hosts, Bircham Dyson Bell (whose London address can be found on its website here: there really is no excuse in this day and age for emailing the IPKat for directions!), you are politely asked to let us know if, having told us you're coming, you might not be attending after all.  Merpel adds that anyone who fails to attend and doesn't give notice to that effect will definitely be inscribed in the Naughty Book.

Happy IP! Professor Estelle Derclaye's inaugural lecture at the University of Nottingham, "Happy IP - what intellectual property has got to do with happiness and vice versa", has a great title -- but does it have any substance? You can find out for yourself by watching the recording, free to view, by just clicking here. The running time is 58 minutes 40 seconds. In it, Estelle (portrayed, right, in a pose that is temptlingly captionable) confesses that her interest was cultivated by a student lecture that mentioned patents, and then by her enjoyment at having to research an IP essay. If only, says this Kat, other people were so accessible to happiness ...


Laughing matter.  "Just a Matter of Laugh? Why the CJEU Decision in Deckmyn is Broader than Parody" is the title of an article by fellow Kat Eleonora which has been accepted for publication in the prestigious Common Market Law Review, in which it will be published next year [this Kat is thrilled to see IP articles getting published in the CMLR: when he was a young and aspiring academic, articles in principle had to be both boring and IP-free in order to get accepted. How things change!].  Eleonora tells us that her contribution is divided into two parts. The first explains the background to the reference in Deckmyn (a case Eleonora has practically made her own: see various Kat references here), summarizing the Opinion of Advocate General Cruz Villalón. The second part discusses specific aspects of the Opinion and the Court of Justice's subsequent ruling. We're not going to spoil the fun by telling you what happens next, but you can read the whole caboodle on SSRN by making the minimal effort of clicking here.


Readers of JIPLP will already know of EU IP Law: a short introduction to European Intellectual Property Law. This is the title of a short book by eminent IP scholars and Katfriends Dirk Visser and Paul van der Kooij of the Leiden Law School, The Netherlands. The authors have published this work as an e-book but, for those who don't like reading things on screen, and for those who don't like getting books free if they can pay for them instead, it will also be published in print in due course. The text of this work can be accessed here or downloaded here. The authors add that they are happy for these links to be passed on to all bona fide students and teachers of the subject -- so feel free to spread the word ...


IPEC: doing well, can still do better. "Representation in the IPEC Small Claims Track" is the title of a most interesting article by Jane Lambert (of NIPClaw fame) on the London IP and Technology Law blog, here.  Jane discusses

... the anomaly that while anyone in the world can appear at a hearing on behalf of a party in the small claims track in most causes of action only a solicitor or other authorized litigator or the party itself can file claim forms or statements of case in that track.

She adds:

That restriction excludes patent and trade mark attorneys who are not authorized to conduct litigation by the Intellectual Property Regulation Board [that's IPReg] (see Rights to conduct Litigation and Advocacy).

Jane also tackles the right of lay representatives to appear as advocates before the Patents County Court: should this continue to apply to proceedings before the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court ("IPEC") small claims track?  Says the IPKat, it's good to see anomalies, inconsistencies and other features that can be improved upon being identified and addressed at what is still an early stage in the life of IPEC and the small claims track. Well done!