Friday fantasies

Coming soon!  Don't forget to check out the IPKat's Forthcoming Events page, apart from which you may be interested in the following ...

* Next week, on 13 and 14 November, the Intellectual Property Department of the University Externado of Colombia, Bogotá, is holding a seminar, “Creative Industries and Entrepreneurship”. The organisers have assured the IPKat that any readers of this weblog who are currently travelling in those exotic parts will be hugely welcome. Further details are available from the IP Tango weblog here. 

* On 3 December you can attend "New media between copyright protection and the access to network conundrum". The speaker is Nicola Lucchi, of the Jönköping International Business School. Just turn up at the City Law School, London. It's free to attend, but you still have to register (and turn up ...). Details are available here.  Illustration of cat with a network conundrum: right.

* On 4 December you can sample the delights of “IP and Litigation in 2014 and beyond”, this being a dinner meeting of Union, at which Charlotte May QC will demonstrate why she was selected as one of The Lawyer’s Hot 100 barristers of 2014.  If you are interested, just click for details here here.  

* On 9 December the Institute of Trade Mark Attorneys, ITMA, is holding its popular Christmas Lunch. In the congenial and gastronomically titillating environment of the InterContinental London Hotel, Park Lane, some 600 intellectual property heavyweights representing all branches of the legal profession will be, eating and drinking to their hearts' content while they discuss topical issues such as applications for class headings, OHIM's no-pay, no-examination policy and, er, whether Christmas parties can be protected as a subset of traditional cultural practices.  Click here for further details.

Just received. In a handsome shade of green and with nice gold letters, Patent Transactions in the Life Sciences: A Global Guide to Agreements in the Sector is a book that can be guaranteed to appeal to one's aesthetic senses. This Kat has only just seen it and hasn't had much of a chance to dip into it, though he notes that consulting editor is a regular guest contributor to this blog, the excellent Paul England (Taylor Wessing) -- who also contributes a chapter called "Looking ahead to the unitary patent" [some people apparently are, notes Merpel: they include EU bigwigs, some fairly big US corporations who are tired of dealing with a fractured Europe, and a bevy of patent litigation lawyers]. This tome is a hardback (385 pages) selling for £135. The ISBN is 9781909416284 and you can get further details here.  Say the publishers:

Patent Transactions in the Life Sciences is designed to provide guidance on the structure and detail of those agreements in the life sciences sector that are based on its most important assets - patents and know-how. As a companion to Intellectual Property in the Life Sciences, it is intended to cover the practical what, where, why and when of patent transactions in this sector, under the leading legal regimes.

The book explains the rights that underpin life sciences transactions and describes the architecture, features and purpose of those transactions. It covers issues from the basics of a licence and assignment to complex agreements. The book also explores the types of deal that commonly feature in the industry at the corporate level and how patents fit in. Associated issues of licence disputes, competition rules, securitisation, insolvency and taxation are also examined.

Around the weblogs.  Can the US Federal Trade Agency strike a deal with a non-practising entity? Mike Mireles gives the answer on IP Finance here. Still on patent-y things, The SPC Blog has posted 143 pages-worth of PowerPoints and speakers' bios from yesterday's SPC Blog Seminar on patent term extension. Is there copyright in the taste and smell of cheese? A guest post by Ronald Wigman on the 1709 Blog brings us up to speed on the latest developments from the cheese-friendly Netherlands. On Afro-IP, Caroline Ncube's series on national IP policies takes her to Namibia, Niger and Nigeria.  Class 46 warns readers about a spot of bother faced by holders of international trademark registrations seeking sunrise registrations for .brussels and .vlaanderen generic top level domains, but commends Norway for addressing the perennial pestilence of fake IP offices.


Over the next couple of weeks, blogmeister Jeremy will be in Australia to give this year's Francis Gurry Lecture.  The regular round-ups will be brought to you by a variety of other Kats. Jeremy will try to do some blogging from Down Under, time and opportunity permitting ...