Thursday thingies

This Kat was delighted to see that the 12th edition of the Butterworths Intellectual Property Law Handbook is now published, though he was a little surprised to read about it online since he hasn't yet received his Consultant Editor's complimentary copies.  This lovely volume is now well over 2,200 pages in length, thanks mainly to the superlative efforts of British and European legislators.  There's no news yet as to whether, and if so when, the 7th edition of the Butterworths E-Commerce and IT Law Handbook, for which he is also Consultant Editor, might be coming out.  Watch this space and he'll let you know.

Old Nick, new face. Next Tuesday, 1 September, between the hours of 5 and 7 pm, outspoken IP blogger Michael Factor (IP Factor) will be inhabiting the sacred inner sanctum of The Old Nick, Sandland Street, and relishes the chance to discuss intellectual property practice and professional ethics. Do feel free to join Michael (as various members of the IP social media fraternity will be) and give him a chance to share some thoughts.  Michael has kindly offered to pay for the drinks ...

Forthcoming events.  Apart from the usual suspects, listed on the IPKat's Forthcoming Events page, here is one that is coming up sooner than the organisers realised pretty soon: it's the British IP Day, coming up on 10 September 2015 from 9.00 - 13.00, at 10-11 Carlton House Terrace, London, SW1Y 5AH. Organisers are the UK Intellectual Property Office and the Office for the Harmonisation of the Internal Market. This Kat understands that there will be an opportunity for attendees to discuss their own proposed topics; if you would like to contribute, please send your suggestions to OHIMBritishDay@ipo.gov.uk in good time before the event. More information is reputedly available here.  

An interior view of Taylor Wessing's venue

On the subject of forthcoming events, registrations for this year's JIPLP-GRUR Int London seminar have now topped the 80 mark -- but there's still a bit of room for a few more souls who have a passion for intellectual property litigation.  This event, which takes place on Tuesday 8 September. "The impact of the Intellectual Property Enforcement Directive (Directive 2004/48) on national litigation" and the venue is the London office of law firm Taylor Wessing LLP (here). The two speakers are London-based barrister Michael Edenborough QC (Serle Court) and Hamburg-based lawyer Wiebke Baars (Taylor Wessing), with JIPLP editor Jeremy Phillips in the chair.  A panel discussion will take place following the presentation of the two papers, led by Anna Carboni (partner, Redd solicitors and an Appointed Person to hear trade mark appeals), Paul Stevens (Olswang CEO and former head of litigation, Olswang LLP) and Mark Owen (Taylor Wessing).  Anna and Paul are both members of the JIPLP editorial board. The panel-led discussion will be followed by questions and comments from the floor and a reception. Registration commences at 2.30 pm for a 3.00 pm start. The formal proceedings should be concluded by 6 pm and the reception will finish by 7 pm. Admission is free and it is believed that there will be some CPD credit. If you'd like to attend, just email Jeremy Phillips at jjip@btinternet.com with the subject line "Enforcement". 

Catching the scent of the
elusive Triennial ...

The Triennial Hasselt-Genk.  You may not yet have heard of it, but the Triennial Hasselt-Genk is an innovative Belgian multidisciplinary arts festival. For its 2016 edition the festival will focus on the complex and rich relationship between trade marks and art. The curator's goal is to approach this relationship in an active, participative and critical way in order to motivate festival-goers to think about IP rights in general and about trade marks more specifically.  Through 10 exhibitions, social artistic projects and an academic conference, the arts festival aims to not only address the professionals in art and IP but also to reach out and raise awareness to a more general audience.  With this goal in mind the festival organisers are looking for the support of this weblog's readership, seeking to identify trade mark-and-art-related cases that might not otherwise have found their way on to their desks. If you have any interesting case law and/or examples of art/artists struggling with trade marks which you think should be showcased, please email artistic director Pieter Jan Valgaeren at pieterjan.valgaeren@gmail.com. 

Not an utter clutter ...  One of this Kat's regular readers dropped him a line a day or two ago to tell him about some work that has recently been undertaken by a group of economists on a UK Intellectual Property Office (IPO) project regarding trade mark register clutter. The resulting report has now been published by the IPO with the title “Cluttering and Non-Use of Trade Marks in Europe”.  You can read it here. The document is 118 pages long.  This topic is somewhat controversial, since some people say the trade mark register is full of over-wide and unnecessary bits of registrations, others say that this is just a sign that the system is popular and works well, while others say that clutter is all the fault of users of the trade mark system who always seem to want to register the same words and images as marks. Other people work in the pharmaceutical sector and fly into paroxysms of rage when any clutter-denier opens his or her mouth.  Anyway, Kat readers can make up their own minds -- as they usually do.

BVI to go sky-high. Beginning next Tuesday, 1 September 2015, the British Virgin Islands (BVI) welcomes its modern new trade mark regime. However, the welcome may be a qualified one since along with the new laws come new (and much increased) fees. Previously charging some of the most modest official fees in the Caribbean region, the BVI is for example hiking the new official fees for single class registrations from a range of soar from US$10-40 per mark to $250 for the first class and $150 for each additional class in a multi-class registration (Katpat to Katherine Van Deusen Hely, founder of Caribbean IP, for this update, following up on her earlier news about the new law).

Around the weblogs.  IP Finance, via Mike Mireles, takes a look at the Trump brand and the impact on it of the eponymous Donald Trump's political campaigning. The Aistemos patent analytics blog has posted a couple of provocative items this week: one speculates as to why patent litigation insurance is offered for businesses that face threats and demands from patent trolls but not for the trolls themselves; another wonders whether there are any prospects for more private sector involvement in the patent examination process.  The jiplp weblog offers another four IP books for review, which the reviewer can keep once he or she done the reviewing. On the subject of books, PatLit notes a handy new one on US patent law for European readers. The 1709 Blog has a red, white and blue CopyKat round-up from Ben Challis and a somewhat critical piece by IPKat blogmeister Jeremy on the value of a UK copyright goodwill mission to share 'best practices' with the visitors' Chinese counterparts.