Monday Miscellany

Your weekly update on the news and events upcoming in IP is here! Highlights this week include news of inclusivity in London, a reminder of the change in fees at the UK IPO and a new data set to browse from the USPTO.

UK – London

Celebrate the Chinese New Year in style with IP & Me’s inaugural event on 26 February 2018, hosted by Baker McKenzie (near St Paul’s). IP & Me is an IP inclusive group, focusing on ethnic minorities in IP. Everyone is welcome at this free networking event. For further details and registration, see here.

For even more inclusivity, there is also an upcoming IP inclusive workshop on 1 February 2018. The event, hosted by Kilburn & Strode LLP, will focus on the topical issue of Managing banter in the work place. Speakers include a member of the UK IPO’s HR team, Dominic Houlihan. Registration is free and all-inclusive. This Kat can strongly recommend IP inclusive events as great networking opportunities, especially for those at an early stage in their career. For further information on IP inclusive, as well as to sign up to the IP inclusive mailing list, see here.

Attentive IPKat readers will recall from our last events post that Kat Neil Wilkof will be giving a lecture at Kings College London (KCL) on 23 January 2018, on the topic of Changing commercial circumstances, IP and revenge of the common law. For further details, see here.

Kat Neil will also be giving a lecture at University College London (UCL) on 25 January 2018, on the topic of Branding and co-branding: How much do they really contribute to innovation? More information and registration can be found here. A chance to see a Kat in the fur!

This Kat is big on inclusivity

There will also be a research seminar at The City Law School on 7th February 2018, 6pm, delivered by professor Tuomas Mylly from the University of Turku on Fundamental Rights and Copyright Law in the EU. Further information and free registration can be found here.

Finally, the Charted Institute of Trademark Attorneys (CITMA) program of events for the year can be found here. Of note, are the CITMA Intensive Training Seminar on IP contracts on 21 March, the Spring Conference and Gala Dinner on 21-23 March, a Designs & Copyright Seminar on 19 April and the CITMA Christmas Lunch on 14 December.

Netherlands, TILT - Call for papers

The Tilbury Institute for Law, Technology and Society (TILT) PhD Colloquium on Regulating new technologies in uncertain times will take place at Tilburg University on 14 June 2018. To find further information on the topics that will be covered at the colloquium and to submit an abstract see here. The deadline for abstract submissions is 28 February 2018.

Poland - WIPO roving seminars

The WIPO roving seminar series continues in Poland this month, in Cracow on January 23, Gliwice on January 24 and Wroclaw on January 25. The seminars and workshops will be in English and Polish, with Polish translation for the English presentations. For further information and free registration see here. 

UK IPO – change in fees

The UK IPO’s new patent fee schedule will come into force on 6 April of this year. The UK government’s guidance on the fee changes can be found here. The application, search and examination fee are all set to increase. Renewal fees increase from the year 12 renewal fee onward. According to the UK IPO, reasons for the increase in fees include to “[m]aintain a sustainable income on reasonable assumptions to finance the IPO’s future activities”.

USPTO – new data set on office actions

The USPTO has released a new data set providing detailed information on the office actions (non-final rejections and final rejections) that it issues. According to the USPTO Chief Data Strategist Thomas Beach, these data have been brought to the public by “leveraging emerging technologies such as big data and machine learning”. The data set itself can be downloaded from the USPTO’s open data platform here. A paper published by the USPTO analyzing the data can be read here. See Tables 1 and 2 of the paper for facts on the distribution of reasons for rejection in final and non-final office actions. This Kat's initial browse of the data reveals such interesting facts as 12.4% of the USPTO's §101 subject eligibility rejections being based on the Alice decision (although the significance of this, without merging the data with those on the type of subject matter in examined claims, is unclear...). The USPTO has also updated its patent examination data set to include the prosecution information for the most recent applications, as sourced from public pair.

Author: Rose Hughes