Monday Miscellany

Meow Meow! October is here with more news, events and opportunities coming your way.

News

Goodbye to our GuestKat Jan Jacobi and our InternKat Alexandre Zanatta Miura.

For the time being, the IPKat team is saying goodbye to our GuestKat Jan Jacobi and our InternKat Alexandre Zanatta Miura: we thank them for their contributions to the IPKat over the past several months and look forward to collaborating with them again in the future!

Asociación para el Desarrollo de la Propiedad Intelectual (Adepi) presents its annual awards: "Intellectual property makes the cultural sector sustainable".

Writer and poet Juan Mollá López, professor and researcher Eleonora Rosati and the Organisation of Ibero-American States were awarded the Adepi 2022 Prize at a gala event at the Lázaro Galdiano Museum in Madrid on 22 September 2022. Read more here (in Spanish).

When you have to move: the trauma of downsizing one's personal library

PermaKat Neil Wilkof recently shared his experiences in being called upon to downsize his personal collection of books, here.   Various Kat readers shared with him their own challenges, sometimes variations on a common theme, sometimes with a unique twist.   One suggestion, offered by Andreas Rahmatian, is particularly noteworthy.  He pointed to the cite--Books For Africa, which reminded Neil that others have donated to this project in the past, all with great satisfaction. ("Why did I not recall them earlier", he now laments.)  Kat readers are invited to share with Neil their own experiences in downsizing their respective book collections.   If we get a critical mass of replies, IPKat will be delighted to report on them in a future post.

Events

October 10, 2022 | QMUL | The Herchel Smith Intellectual Property Lecture 2022 | Lecture Theatre, Ashworth Centre, The Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn Lincoln's Inn Fields London WC2A 3TL United Kingdom

The Herchel Smith Intellectual Property Lecture 2022 will focus on the UK Courts' striving for consistency with international decisions in patent law with The Hon Mr Justice Meade. The Patents Court, the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court (before that, the House of Lords) have all and for many years stressed the need for consistency with decisions of the Boards of Appeal of the EPO. They have also on many occasions taken into account the decisions of the national courts of other EPC member states in their quest for consistency, both in terms of validity and infringement. This presentation will look at how this has been done, when it has worked well and when it has worked less well, how it can and should work when the EPO (in particular) changes or develops its law differently from the UK, and how this fits with precedent. It also discusses the problems that can arise when making decisions under the UPC. For more information and to register for the event, click here.

October 26, 2022 | Bird & Bird | "Webinar: The DSM Directive one year on (part II) Article 15: A power shift back to the publishers?" | online

Article 15 of Directive 2019/790 builds on and follows a number of national initiatives aimed at remedying declining revenues in the press sector. Over time, the internet and new online services – such as news aggregators and media monitoring services – have been frequently indicated as being partially responsible for this phenomenon, due to the impossibility for press publishers to control and contrast unauthorised uses of press content by these subjects. In part two of Bird & Bird's DSM Directive webinar series, there will be voices from different markets, including the UK, Italy, Denmark and the Netherlands. Guest speakers will be John Halton, Assistant General Counsel, Financial Times and Karen Rønde, CEO, Danish Press Publications’ CMO (DPCMO), along with Bird & Bird copyright experts, Eleonora Rosati and Clemens Molle. More information and registration to the event are available here.

October 31, 2022 - November 1, 2022 | "Rethinking copyright flexibility"| University of Cyprus, Nicosia, Cyprus, at room B108, building Anastasios Leventis, New Campus Aglantzia

"Rethinking copyright flexibility" is a conference organized by the Department of Law of the University of Cyprus, Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna (Pisa) and the H2020 project reCreating Europe. The conference aims to provide some critical thinking concerning the present and future of copyright flexibilities in European copyright law and their evolutionary paths. The conference critically discusses the state of the art and evolution of copyright flexibilities in Europe, exploring their types, forms, limits, dynamics and perspectives, also in light of the most recent interventions of the EU legislators and landmark decisions of the Court of Justice of the EU, and debate opportunities and need for legislative reform. More information, programme, and registration are available here.

November 11, 2022 | UNION IP | "Round Table: Design & Copyright Law: Siblings or rivals?" | Koninklijke Industrieele Groote Club, Amsterdam

UNION-IP’s Autumn Round Table will be happening on 11 November 2022 at Koninklijke Industrieele Groote Club in Amsterdam. The Round Table will tackle the overlap (or interference!) between the two distinct IP rights of Designs and Copyright, and aims to look at practical/technical aspects and to debate the legal consequences of those IP rights, including scope of protection. More details and information on signing up to this event can be found here. 

November 14-15, 2022 | Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore | "Copyright in the age of disruption" | NUS Law - Bukit Timah Campus* 469G Bukit Timah Road Singapore 259776

The theme is "Copyright in the Age of Disruption". Submissions of papers covering a wide range of topics are encouraged, relating to how copyright law needs to be reformed in the 21st century. Papers and presentations are expected to discuss how copyright law would address myriad disruptive phenomena such as the evolving use of artificial intelligence, the creation of the metaverse, text and data-mining, new communication technologies, NFTs and fast fashion. The conference will also explore challenges to established copyright doctrines such as idea-expression dichotomy, fact-expression dichotomy, fair use and first-sale, as well as the meanings of familiar concepts that include “authorship”, “transformative use” and “the right of communication to the public”. For more information, the programme and registration, click here.

November 17, 2022 | FPS Economy and EPO | "The Unitary Patent System - a game-changer for innovation in Europe" | Concert Noble, Brussels

Conference co-organised by the FPS Economy and the European Patent Office, with the support of the European Commission. The event will take in Brussels and online. More information and the programme are available here. Registration for in-person attendance is available here. Registration for online attendance is available here.Register for the conference at Concert Noble by October 28, 2022, at the latest. Participation is free of charge but registration is mandatory. Please note that places are limited.

December 7, 2022 | COMP LAW | "Competition Law in the Pharmaceutical Sector" - Le Châtelain Hotel, Brussels

Assess the legal risks currently facing the pharma industry and discover what new opportunities are available by hearing from a diverse range of experts, including regulators, top in-house counsel and specialised advisors. IPKat readers are entitled to a 15% discount in the registration fee by using the VIP code FKW83446IPKEM. Further information is available here.

Opportunities

AI - Call for a multidisciplinary team

In light of Katfriend Daniel Gervais' essay "Human as a Matter of Law. How Courts can Define Humanness in the Age of Artificial Intelligence", he is aiming to put together a multidisciplinary team to deepen this research and take it forward. More information here (download or open the paper).

ALAI European Authors’ Right Award – supported by GESAC | 5th edition / 2023

ALAI (see here), a worldwide network of academics and experts in copyright wants to give young researchers the opportunity to showcase their views on authors’ right/copyright by entering an essay competition. The award is supported by GESAC (see here), the European Grouping of Societies of Authors and Composers. Subject, prize, eligibility, selection procedure, relevant contact and deadline for submission are available here.

WIPO 2023 YEP Program - Call for Applications

The WIPO “Young Experts Program” (YEP) aims to train the next generation of global IP leaders to help build innovation ecosystems around the world. Through this 2-year program, young and talented individuals will be groomed to not only understand the technical aspects of IP but also apply them in practice, to make an impact in their countries and regions. This is boot camp for your career - and a graduate program for life! Our next Young Experts cohort will join WIPO early 2023. Applications can be done here by October 5, 2022.

AssimilateIP - IP Licensing for Life Sciences and Pharma (19-20 October 2022) - webinar

AssimilateIP's new IP licensing for life sciences and pharma course will take the form of a webinar on 19 and 20 October and will provide an overview of the key IP rights (e.g. patents, trade marks, design rights, trade secrets, know how) and associated agreements related to licensing these rights which technology transfer and licensing professionals experience in their day-to-day practice. More information, including an overview of the course and how to register, can be found here. IPKat readers receive a 10% discount on registration by mentioning "IPKat" when booking.