Tuesday tiddlywinks

Henry Carr: a portrait in search of a caption?

Hurrah for Henry!  It was with a mixture of excitement and pleasure that this Kat read of the canonisation annointment appointment of Henry Carr QC as a judge of the Chancery Division of the High Court, England and Wales.  Unlike some of the current members of the Patents Court, Henry is no stranger to intellectual property, a field in which he has practised since the 1980s: indeed, he is a fully-fledged member of the IP community and his exploits as a Deputy Judge have been recorded on a number of occasions on this weblog (see eg Healey v Jensen here, International Stem Cell Corporation v Comptroller of Patents here).  Merpel joins this Kat in looking forward to seeing what Henry can do, and how elegantly he can perform the increasingly important judicial function known as "cut-and-paste". Meanwhile, you can enjoy watching him giving this excellent talk on design protection back in 2012.

Many people in big business still think
that SMEs look something like this ...

Around the weblogs 1. Intellectual property intelligence company Aistemos, which has pioneered both the Cipher patent analytics platform and the not-for-profit ORoPO Foundation, which seeks to provide accurate and reliable patent ownership information via the Open Register of Patent Ownership, has now launched a more informal, interactive and user-friendly weblog which you can try out here. "IP policy for SMEs -- but which SMEs?" is the question posed by IP Draughts' Mark Anderson, asking readers to contrast the entitlement of the fictitious Xavier, Yvonne and Zac to be targeted by government beneficence. 

Around the weblogs 2.  Over on The SPC Blog you'll find a report by Jan Pot and Mark van Gardingen (Brinkhof) on some pretty powerful litigation before the District Court, The Hague, on a patent for a proposed zinc salt of rosuvastatin (right): was it a "pharmaceutically acceptable salt" as claimed in the basic patent, which had now been extended into SPC-Land? (Note: this case affects an SPC but it's really a patent case: you can check it out here).  Remaining in the zone of patent law, PatLit carries a guest blog from the Wragge Lawrence Graham duo of Paul Inman and Andrew Maggs on inventive step and the role of the "obvious to try" test in Teva v Leo [Merpel posted on this very case yesterday, so now you have two commentaries to consider]. On Class 46, guest Kat Mark picks up a slightly surprising decision of the Swiss Federal Administrative Court to the effect that the Yves St Laurent logo couldn't shoo away a not-dissimilar Skinny Love logo (the two are pictured on Class 46 and also on the increasingly colourful MARQUES Facebook page.

Fancy a bit of hands-on European patent filing? The European Patent Office is holding its second Online Services User Day of 2015 in Zürich on 22 and 23 October. This event offers you a chance to attend a combination of practical PC workshops, not to mention seminars about the EPO's patent granting procedure. The hands-on sessions include workshops on both the new online filing (CMS) system and the current online filing software, these two options being covered in separate workshops (ie  remember to pick the one you want when you register for the event). Full details about the programme can be found here. The deadline for registration is 4 October 2015 and it's first-come, first-served.  For registration details click here.