Monday miscellany

The Collective Rights Management Directive was implemented yesterday, giving rightsholders greater control and oversight over the Collective Management Organisations (CMOs) organisations responsible for licensing and royalty distribution. 

Royalties to be tamed but not just domestic

The new Directive, which aims to harmonise aspects of the way CMOs work and create a more transparent framework, is part of the wider Europe 2020 Strategy for a strong Digital Single Market. It is hoped to improve control of rights by rightsholders, payment of royalties in a timely, accurate manner, decision making and all-round transparency. 

Baroness Neville-Rolfe, Minister for Intellectual Property, said:

"This is great news for UK rights holders who deserve to be paid accurately and promptly for their work. I am certain that the increased oversight and transparency offered to artists will improve the standards of collective management organisations across Europe, and make the entire process run more smoothly. It is right that artists have more choice over who manages their work and how they do it". 

For more see the press release here and the text of the Directive, here.

European Intellectual Property Teachers' Network  (EIPTN Ltd) are holding their ninth annual workshop on July 4th and 5th at State University of Library Studies and Information Technologies, Sofia Bulgaria, EIPTN is multi-disciplinary, and aims to bring together IP teachers from across Europe to exchange ideas on best practice in intellectual property teaching and learning activities, with support from the European Patent Academy of the European Patent Office (EPO) and the Academy of the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO). To participate in the workshop and discuss best practice in IP teaching with a presentation or poster, submissions can be made here and the deadline is 29th April.


4th Annual Tel Aviv University Workshop for Junior Scholars - call for papers. The Tel Aviv University (TAU) Workshop invites submissions from junior scholars of IP with the theme of "Law in a Changing Society". The workshop itself is taking place on 21st-23rd November and the deadline for abstracts is May 16th. Find the call for papers with more information here.

Intellectual Property Law Committee (ILPC) vacancies. Katfriend Mark Anderson has alerted us to an opportunity at the ILPC of the Law Society of England and Wales. It is open to IP experts with an appetite for influencing the development of law and policy at the national and international level. There are four vacancies, offering an interesting and diverse workload. More information about the positions can be found on the IP Draughts blog here and applications can be made here.

Oxfirst Ltd webinar series: Patent Valuation. This Friday 15th April, Dr. Ednando Silva, Founder and Managing Director of RoyaltyStat & Dr. Roya Ghafele, Director of Oxfirst are presenting a webinar about the determination of a patent's value. You can register here,

Could eavesdropping be the new download?

3D Printers can be 'pirated' by audio recording.  According to research published in Science Magazine (here, and summarised here), it is possible to copy a 3D printed product with up to 92% accuracy simply by precisely recording the printer noises. This seems to be just one more concern to add to the growing list of uncertainties surrounding IP and 3D printing, on which see more here and here.

Wright Brothers' patents found in a cave.   A file of patents labelled "Flying Machine" has been discovered after being lost for 36 years. The patents were found by an archivist in a storage cave in Lenexa, Kansas - around 1,000 miles from where they were believed to have been in Washington DC. The local account of the discovery can be found here, and the text and figures of one such patent, here.