Wednesday whimsies

Today the Kats, aided and abetted by the hospitality of law firm Veale Wasbrough Vizards in their London office, held this year's IP  Publishers and Editors Meeting. A gathering of around 50 good souls assembled to hear keynote Peter Groves' opinions on various issues including accuracy in expressing oneself (he's in favour), split infinitives (he's against) and subjunctives (he's a recent convert, it seems). Peter ended with a stirring plea for clearer and more generous contracts for authors, whose remuneration -- at least when writing IP articles and case notes -- is not what one might call generous.  More interesting than the end of Peter's talk was, for this Kat, the beginning, when he observed that he is descended on the paternal line from Matthew Groves.  Was this the Matty Groves, this Kat wondered, his mind instantly homing on on the 1969 Fairport Convention version of this epic song, with vocals by the late lamented Sandy Denny (which you can enjoy here on YouTube).

Tomorrow's JIPLP Conference. If you are not attending the sell-out Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice 10th Anniversary conference (programme here), there;s some good news.  The event's hosts, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, have kindly organised a live link which you can enjoy by clicking https://event.webcasts.com/starthere.jsp?ei=1086008 and deploying the password JIPLP10.  This link is expected to go live at 9.30 am GMT on Thursday 26 November.  Accessing this link via Google Chome is recommended, especially if you are hoping to enjoy the 'full screen' facility.  For those who are attending, here's a reminder that there's a Twitter hashtag of #jiplp10.

Around the weblogs If you are a UK tax-payer, business or prospective inward investor, the contents of today's "UK Spending Review" (a.k.a. the "Autumn Statement") are bound to be of concern.  Over on the IP Finance weblog intellectual property taxation specialist Anne Fairpo gives a swift and simple account of it. A day earlier on the same weblog, Rob Harrison invited readers to participate in the World Intellectual Property Review survey of FRAND licensing.  Ben Challis, on the 1709 Blog, writes up a potentially depressing decision for US internet service providers on the possible scope of their liability in the BMG v Cox litigation. The jiplp weblog lists the contents of this December's JIPLP and also hosts founder editor and IPKat blogmeister Jeremy's Farewell Editorial.  Finally, if you have ever wondered what a MARQUES "meet the trade mark judges" event is like, Christian Tenkhoff's report on a recent one in Munich is worth taking a look at. Over on the Aistemos blog, there's a most informative piece of fact-and-figure work on the apparent disjunction between the IP portfolio holdings of Nasdaq-listed companies and their capitalisation.