Friday fantasies

Forthcoming events. As usual, the IPKat's list of impending conferences, seminars, lectures and other IP attractions has been given its weekly spring-clean and update, so don't forget to check it out. Latest on the list is the "Meet the Judges" seminar that takes place in Dublin, Ireland, on Friday 5 June.  It's organised by European trade mark organisation MARQUES and features more judges than you can shake your wig at.  It's ideal for trade mark litigators, particularly if they fancy combining their professional pleasures with a weekend break on the banks of the River Liffey ...

Don't forget to celebrate this Sunday -- it's World Intellectual Property Day 2015 (though our good friends in all sorts of places have started their celebrations a few days early).  This year's theme is "Get up, Stand up. For Music".  Merpel thinks this is a strange slogan and assumes that it sounds better or more meaningful in whichever language it was originally conceived before it was translated into English.  The IPKat doesn't think it's strange at all.  It's obviously an allusion to the custom and practice of that great intellectual property-based money-spinner, the Olympic Games, where there is a great deal of getting up and standing up for music ...

Dreaming of a 3D printer?
Don't forget the Notice ...

Around the weblogs. The 1709 Blog welcomes a new team member in Andy Johnstone, who will be known to many readers of this blog as one of its most frequent comment-posters on copyright-related matters.  Andy has already posted his first item, on ownership of IP created by students.  The same blog also features a piece by Marie-Andrée Weiss on a bill to fix IP infringement notices on all Californian 3D printers.  On PatLit, David Berry reports on some good news for US patent attorneys, whose pay packets must be feeling considerably heavier now that a year has passed since the US Supreme Court gave its ruling on attorney fees in Octane, here. Still on the subject of patents, Penny Gilbert writes a guest piece on The SPC Blog on prospects for patent term extensions for veterinary vaccines in light of the EFTA Court ruling in Pharmaq v Intervet, while the same blog records a most unusual event these days -- an action concerning supplementary protection certificates which the trial judge refuses to send to the Court of Justice of the European Union for a preliminary ruling (Viiv v Teva, here).

The INTA is coming ... and this Kat, together with a colleague or two, will be there. For those who don't like acronyms and initials, this is a bit of a fake one since the "N" doesn't stand for anything.  INTA is the International Trademark Association and its 137th Meeting takes place in San Diego, Southern California early next month. The IP blogosphere has taken cognisance of this event, which will attract some 9,000-plus trade mark and other IP folk: SOLO IP's Barbara Cookson has already had a good moan, quite justifiably, at this year's policy regarding badging and guest tickets, while Katfriend Daniel Greenberg of Lexsynergy -- which will be exhibiting at the Meeting, writes "Instead of handing out cheap breakable gifts [Merpel, who has a wonderful collection of mouse mats from INTA, wonders how you break them. Do you put them in the freezer till they go brittle and then snap them?] we are giving away domain names (.lawyer and .attorney) to lawyers that visit our booth with no strings attached" [So, if you are a straight-laced lawyer, please note: untying your laces is not enough: you have to detach them in their entirety].

Competition, licensing and TRIPS: a new title.  This Kat has just learned that the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD), together with the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), have published a new paper on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). With the long and difficult-to-memorise title of Competition Analyses of Licensing Agreements: Considerations for Developing Countries under TRIPS,  the paper -- written by Hiroko Yamane (National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies, GRIPS, Tokyo) -- tackles the interface between intellectual property rights and competition policy, looking particularly at the relevant provisions of TRIPS Agreement, in particular Article 40 and the considerable discretion which is available for TRIPS implementation in national law.  Further details are available here. This Kat hasn't had a chance to look at it yet, but the topic appeals to him and he hopes that it will live up to his expectations.