Monday miscellany

International Patent Forum: an update. Late last month, when the IPKat told readers about Managing Intellectual Property's International Patent Forum on 10 and 11 March (details here), the list of speakers was still "work in progress". The organisers have asked him to point out that this list has since been substantially enhanced by the addition of several big-hitters. Taking a quick peep at the latest version of the speakers' list, this Kat spotted none other than the UK's Intellectual Property Minister Baroness Neville-Rolfe, not to mention Simone Ferrara (Vodafone), Timothy May and Philip Cupitt (Finnegan), long-time Katfriend Pravin Anand (Anand & Anand), Sisvel's founder Roberto Dini, plus the Wragge Lawrence Graham pair of David Barron and Nick Cunningham and a number of dignitaries from near and far.  This Kat has also been reliably informed that, to celebrate the fifth year of the Forum and Managing Intellectual Property's 25th birthday, there will also be a special cocktail reception for all who attend the event. As founder editor of that august publication, this Kat plans to put in an appearance at the cocktail reception if it's not past his bedtime ...

Three-Dee, Deary Me. Would you believe it! A Kat can wait years for a decent event on the IP aspects and significance of 3D printing and then suddenly two of them come along, on the same day.  The IPKat's friends at the European Communities Trade Mark Association (ECTA -- not to be confused with his other friends at MARQUES, who occupy the same space, but rather differently) have recently published the programme for their Round Table on 3D Printing and Intellectual Property Rights and the Update on the Trade Mark Legislative Package on 11 March 2015 in Brussels.  Over the other side of the Atlantic, in New York City, the IPKat's other friends in the International Trademark Association (INTA) are holding a two-dayer, "3D Printing/Additive Manufacturing: Cutting-Edge IP and Business Implications", on 10 and 11 March (programme here). This event features fellow Kat Neil, who is speaking on "Potential Tax Effects of 3D Printing". Neil's synopsis reads thus:

"Often ignored in discussing the possible disruptions to manufacturing and distribution from the adoption of 3D printing technology is the possible effects on taxation. Will the tax base change as a result? If so, in what ways, and what might be the possible response? Take into account these questions against the backdrop of the various actors in the 3D printing ecosystem".

It is very much hoped that both events will be great successes even though, unless the technology of 3D printing improves greatly over the next month and people are able to send post themselves from one venue and print themselves out at the other end, it won't be possible to get the benefit of attending both.

"EU Copyright, I Love You".  Not many people have been heard to recite the preceding words in that particular sequence but, if readers of this weblog were asked to guess who might be bold enough to utter them, they would probably have fellow Kat Eleonora somewhere around the top of their list.  Anyway, Eleonora -- who loves explaining all about copyright to anyone who will listen -- is holding another of her bespoke e-LAWnora copyright consciousness-raising events on (you've guessed it if you read the item above) 11 March in the beautiful London office of law firm RPC.  Eleonora has written more eloquently than even this Kat can manage, over on the 1709 Blog here.  Registration details are here (there are heavily discounted places for students, and you can enjoy the event by streaming/YouTube too).

Around the weblogs. Our occasional guest blogger Sean Gilday (Page Hargrave) offers some thoughts on SOLO IP about those dear souls who go to a patent professional but seem a bit coy when it comes to disclosing what they've invented.   Over on the MARQUES Class 99 design law blog, which is sometimes a little quiet, there have been two recent posts: one is by Krystian Maciaszek on a General Court ruling on that frustratingly fact-driven concept, design freedom, while the other, a guest post from Nikos Prentoulis, reports a challenging and uncomfortable debate within the furniture industry about the morality or otherwise of "good" copying. Over on the MARQUES Class 46 blog, Yvonne Onomor makes her debut with a post on the sad fate of the "I ♥ Paris" and "J'♥ Paris" marks in France, both held by the Cour de Cassation to be non-distinctive. The same blog records Katfriend Laetitia Lagarde's note on another accident waiting to happen: surely no-one other than the appellant thought that the slogan SMARTER SCHEDULING was going to be accorded Community trade mark protection for business management systems and similar products in Class 9.

From another Katfriend and MARQUES colleague, Tiina Komppa (Roschier, Finland) comes news that Finnish shoe designer Minna Parikka – who is known for her playful and colourful shoes – is facing a trade mark battle in Asia.  Advokaatti (the magazine of the Finnish Bar Association) reports here (naturally in Finnish) that Minna's trade mark in China was registered in a name of another entity even before she entered the Asian market, it having been "stolen" on the off-chance that, as an upcoming fashion brand, it might just become successful in the market in question.  Alas, this is not an isolated incident, but the IPKat feels bound to report it because the shoes do look like fun (Merpel refuses to wear high heels since, for any feline quadruped, having to purchase two pairs at a time is dreadfully expensive ...).


There will be a Tuesday Tiddlywinks tomorrow, to report some of the bits and pieces that couldn't be squeezed into this Monday Miscellany.