Friday Fantasies

There is a lot to cover in this week's Friday Fantasies: events, calls for papers, IP news ... Let's get straight into things!

Events

UCL IBIL Courses for Winter & Spring 2020

The UCL Institute of Brand and Innovation Law recently announced its courses for Winter and Spring 2020. They will all be held at the UCL Faculty of Laws, Bentham House, 4-6 Endsleigh Gardens, London, WC1H 0EG, and early bird tickets are available for all of the events until 21 days before the course. You can find further details on each of the events in the links below:

• Tuesday 11 February 2020, 9:30am-5pm: Drafting and negotiating clinical trial agreements
• Tuesday 18 February 2020, 9:30am-5pm: Drafting and negotiating contracts with universities
• Tuesday 3 March 2020 or Tuesday 2 June 2020 (both from 9am-5pm): Contract Drafting Skills Workshop
• Monday 20 April - Friday 24 April 2020: IP Transactions: Law and Practice 2020. Note that the course application deadline is Friday 28 February 2020, and only a few places remain.
• Tuesday 12 May 2020, 9am-5pm: Drafting and negotiating IP terms in research contracts
• Tuesday 19 May 2020, 9:30am-5pm: P Licensing: An advanced level drafting workshop
• Tuesday 26 May 2020, 9am-5pm: Introduction to Contracts
• Tuesday 9 June 2020, 9am-5pm: Drafting "legal" clauses in commercial contracts

UCL IBIL - 'Privacy and Data: Law and Practice' course

UCL IBIL is also running a 2-day CPD course for lawyers and company executives working with IP, the media, public figures, privacy, confidential information and managing third parties' personal data. This will be held on 17 and 18 February 2020, from 9am-6pm on both days, in the Hong Kong Alumni Room, UCL Faculty of Laws, Bentham House, Endsleigh Gardens, London, WC1H 0EG. You can find further details here.

Bucerius IP Lecture Series
On 25 February 2020 at 7:00 pm, Bucerius Law School in Hamburg will host a lecture delivered by The IPKat's own Eleonora Rosati, on the topic of 'Brexit through the Lens of UK Copyright'. Here's the abstract:

On 31 January 2020, the United Kingdom formally left the European Union, though Brexit will not display its real effects until IP Completion Day, that is 31 December 2020. As things currently stand, after that date and among other things, UK courts will in principle no longer be bound by decisions of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), nor will they be able to refer new cases to the CJEU. This apparent freedom might translate in a different approach of UK legislature and courts to key IP issues. By using UK copyright as a case study, this talk will consider to what extent this is however likely to be the case, especially in the absence of a major overhaul of the relevant statute.

If you wish to sign up, click here.

Bird & Bird's Triple Book Launch

In celebration of the launch of 3 major books (all published by Sweet & Maxwell) from the Bird & Bird life sciences, internet and data protection teams, Bird & Bird will be holding an event on 27 February 2020, from 6 - 9pm, at its London office at 12 New Fetter Lane, London, EC4A 1JP. The books launched include:

• Life Sciences and Intellectual Property: Law & Practice (1st Edition) by Patrick Kelleher;
• Internet Law and Regulation (5th Edition) by Graham Smith; and
• Data Protection Strategy: Implementing Data Protection Compliance (3rd Edition) by Ruth Boardman and Richard Morgan

Those who attend will get to meet the authors, pick up a discount voucher (and enjoy the view from the eleventh floor of the Bird & Bird London office!) You can find further details, including how to RSVP, here.

CIPIL Annual Spring Conference 2020: Is IP Good for Our Health?

In its Annual Spring Conference (chaired by Lord Justice Richard Arnold), the Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Law's conference will bring together practitioners, scholars and policymakers to examine the latest decisions, research and political developments in the field of intellectual property and health. The event will be held on 7 March 2020 from 9:30am to 5:50pm, at the Faculty of Law, 10 West Road, Cambridge, CB3 9DZ. Topics will include, amongst others: the implications of non-obviousness for follow-on medical innovation (e.g. drug repurposing) after the UK Supreme Court's 2019 decision in Actavis v ICOS; the current and future roles of competition law in controlling drug prices, including an update on Flynn and Pfizer; and the potential effect of Brexit on the trade of medical products. You can sign up here, find further information here, and the conference programme here.

CIPIL 15th Annual Intellectual Property Lecture

Professor Arti K. Rai (Elvin R. Larry Professor of Law, Duke Law School) will deliver the fifteenth annual intellectual property lecture on 10 March 2020 on 'Patents and Trade Secrecy in AI: The Case of Health'. This is an invitation-only event - if you would like an invitation, please contact the CIPIL Administrator at cipil@law.cam.ac.uk.

BPIP Annual Conference 2020
This year's 'Best Practices in Intellectual Property' Conference 2020 (held on 23 and 24 March 2020) will bring global decision makers and international IP stars to Tel Aviv to ensure you are updated on the IP global issues, trends and legislation that affect your company's IP. Master classes will also be held, covering topics including Big Data and AI and litigation financing for patent suits. It will be held at the Sheraton Hotel in Tel Aviv, and you can find further information here.

... That's a lot of IP events to sink your teeth into...

EPO Search Matters 2020
The European Patent Office is organising its annual event 'Search Matters', where attendees (patent search professionals from business, academia and IP firms) can meet EPO examiners to gain an insight into how they tackle the complex task of searching the ever expanding prior art. This year's Search Matters conference aims to deliver workshops and lectures with a special focus on disruptive technologies such as 3D printing/additive manufacturing, AI and CII (computer-implemented inventions). Additionally, during their popular “at-the-desk” sessions, a limited number of pre-registered participants will have the opportunity to talk to examiners individually and gather first-hand information about their search strategies in specific technical areas.

The event will be held from 11-13 May 2020, at The Hague, Netherlands, and you can find further information, including programme details and how to register (in the side bar), here.


Call For Papers

Call for Papers - 12th Annual Conference on Innovation and Communications Law
The Center of IP, Media and Innovation Law (Danube University Krems) and the IT | IP Law Group (Vienna University of Economics and Business) will jointly host and organize the 12th Annual Conference on Innovation and Communications Law (CICL) on 7 and 8 May 2020 at venues in Vienna and Krems (Austria). (Note that for speakers, the social program is complementary and there will be no conference fee for academics.)

The organisers of CICL 2020 would like to invite papers on the topic of this year's conference: "Society in Transition - Challenges and Implications for Innovation and Communications Law". They welcome proposals on a wide variety of topics related to intellectual property law, communications law, and subjects at the intersection of the two; inter- or trans-disciplinary papers are particularly welcome. To submit a paper for presentation at CICL 2020, please submit your proposal via www.cicl2020.at by 15 February 2020. You can find further details on how to submit an abstract here.

Extended Deadline - Call for papers - International Conference celebrating the 40th Anniversary of CRIDS: "Time to Re-shape the Digital Society"
To celebrate the 40th anniversary of CRIDS (Centre de recherche information, droit et société - Information, Law and Society Research Centre), is organising an international conference: "Time to Re-Shape the Digital Society" which will take place on Thursday 2nd July and Friday 3 July 2020; as well as an international summer school to take place on Tuesday 30 June and Wednesday 1 July 2020. (This will be held in Namur, Belgium, and you can find out how to register here.)

As part of the conference, which will assemble those from all over the world and from different disciplines to reflect on a future framework for the development of a better digital society, many slots are open to researchers and practitioners through this call for papers. Cutting-edge papers, delivering vision and insight, are welcome from all fields covered at the CRIDS and the NADI: law; communication and digital media education philosophy and ethics; computer sciences; and management.

Abstracts should be submitted by 15 March 2020, and you can read further information here.


IP News

The Intellectual Property Office updates IP guidance ready for the transition period to 31 December 2020
The UK Intellectual Property Office has updated its guidance for when the UK departs from the EU on 31 January 2020. The guidance, entitled 'Intellectual Property and the Transition Period', will be available not view on the IPO website here, and you can find an overview of the guidance here.