Wednesday Whimsies 2

This being a very whimsical Wednesday, the IPKat is pleased to present you with a second batch of Whimsies, to complement those posted earlier here,

Mark your diaries.  On 24 February the IPKat weblog and the British Literary and Copyright Association (BLACA) are holding a joint event. The venue: the London office of Reed Smith; the subject: whether the protection of copyright extends to cover smells and perfumes.  The two speakers will be fellow Kat Eleonora Rosati and the ever-excellent Tobias Cohen Jehoram, who has litigated this very topic in his native Dutch courts, and IPKat blogmeister Jeremy will be in the chair, or at least not very far from it.  There will be corporeal refreshments as well as the intellectual variety.  Further information will be forthcoming soon. Meanwhile, if you are thinking of joining us, mark your diary and save the date.

The only football you can be sure to watch
in a pub if you don't have a licence ...

Avalon told to pay up.  Via Stewart Cameron (Cameron Intellectual Property, Glasgow, Katpat!) comes this link to the news that the operators of Glasgow's late lamented Avalon Bar in Glasgow have been ordered by the Court of Session to pay Sky more than £73,000 for unlawfully showing football matches. This copyright infringement award was described by Sky's lawyers as the largest award ever made against a pub landlord in actions of this kind. Added Sky Business deputy managing director Alison Dolan: ""Copyright infringement creates an uneven playing field for thousands of hardworking licensees who legitimately invest in Sky Sports, which is why we are committed to visiting thousands of pubs, as well as investigating suppliers, to protect our customers and ensure they are not left short-changed by illegal activity." Anyone interested in visiting pubs and watching football should apply directly to Sky, says Merpel.  For the record, earlier Sky v Avalon interim injunctive relief litigation, here, was the subject of a helpful guest Katpost by Gill Grassie, here.

Hot technology: a car battery
that fits your LEGO set?

Around the weblogs.  IP Finance carries two fresh blogposts this week.  The first, from fellow Kat Neil, speculates on the prospect of a revival of something that this Kat never expected to see: the patent auction, as pioneered by Ocean Tomo. There's also a guest ;post from Aistemos CEO and founder Nigel Swycher on the significance of Toyota opening up its fuel cell patent technology for royalty-free use.  On PatLit, there are also two fresh posts, both from Michael Thesen. The first, "Jilted in Munich", deals with the allocation of costs in EPO proceedings where one party's behaviour has been non-abusive but somewhat inconvenient. The second considers the effect on GoPro's share price of a patent granted to Apple. On Class 46 Katfriend Laetitia is first to break the expected news that Lithuanian water producer's application to register a figurative Community trade mark with the words Melt Water in it ran aground; the same happened to its parallel application to register a bottle shape.

Encore un Charlie ...

The JE SUIS CHARLIE trade mark applications.  Since Eleonora broke the news yesterday morning that an application had been made to register this pro-freedom-of-speech and anti-terrorism slogan (on which there is already a surprisingly full Wikipedia entry) as a trade mark, this Kat has been inundated with further information about these trade mark filings, for that and other inappropriate subject matter, in various jurisdictions. He has also received a link to a report on what the creator of "Je suis Charlie" thinks about the whole thing. It seems to this blogger that so much has now been said on this sad subject that there is little he can usefully add: there is a widely-expressed sentiment that these applications are opportunistic actions which, while certainly lawful in themselves (they do not relate to unregistrable subject matter), are generally regarded as being as being made in bad taste.  This Kat suspects that many applications of this kind are made by people who erroneously assume that a trade mark registration of "Je suis Charlie", "MH370" or equivalent mark gives them some form of possessory right to it that will enable them to charge a rent to anyone using them.  He doubts that a granting office or court would consider that any relevant consuming public would regard those terms as distinguishing goods or services for which registration was sought, for as long as their popular meaning persisted in that public's hearts and minds.