SHORT BUT SWEET ...

Here's a selection of recent items specially brought by the IPKat and Merpel for you to contemplate over the weekend.

ImClone's lost patent rights

ImClone thought its antibody patent was theirs - but the District Court for the Southern District of New York ruled otherwise, giving it to Yeda. The Patent Baristas blog explains that you can't prove your team has made an invention unless your internal records are strong enough to support your contention.


The Gowers Review: watch this space ...

In a few short weeks, publication of the Gowers Review of Intellectual Property should have taken place. This review, which was called for by the Treasury rather than by the Department of Trade and Industry, is expected to paint an independent picture of the infrastructure of intellectual property in the United Kingdom. It is chaired by Andrew Gowers, who can expect a lot of attention from the IP community once his findings are made public.

IPKat co-blogmeister Jeremy is provisionally planning to conduct some in-depth seminars on what the Gowers Review recommends and what those recommendations may mean to IP owners, practitioners, competitors and consumers. To that end, he has reserved slots at the Chamber of Shipping (near the Barbican, London) for four consecutive Monday afternoons - 20 and 27 November and 4 and 11 December - for a workshop on the Gowers Review (they're not cumulative: each one will cover the same issues). The price is unlikely to exceed £85 for the afternoon and may be cheaper. If you'd like further information once it becomes available, please email the IPKat here or Jeremy here.


IPKat copyright

The IPKat is sometimes asked what his policy is with regard to copyright in material that's posted on this weblog. The position is this: the copyright in all material that is original to the weblog and generated by its blogmeisters is owned by Ipkat Limited. The company is happy to allow free use for what are essentially non-commercial purposes and is even happier to grant a licence on thoroughly reasonable terms to anyone who wants to use any material for commercial (and that includes profitable) purposes. If you're not sure whether your use is commercial or not, email the IPKat here and he'll be pleased to tell you.


Alles in Ordnung

The IPKat's learned friend Dr Alexander von Mühlendahl, currently practising as a Rechtsanwalt in Munich after his stint at OHIM, has kindly drawn his attention to an increasing tendency of the European Court of Justice to deal with Community trade mark-related appeals from the Court of First Instance by way of an order rather than through the traditional mechanism of a hearing followed by a judgment.

As Alexander accurately observes, orders are more difficult to spot than are judgments (indeed, he mentioned orders dismissing appeals in Case C-92/06 P, Sofass (NOKY/Nicky, Order of 13 July 2006), Case C-314/05 P, Creative Technology (W WORK PRO/PC WORKS, Order of 29 June 2006) and Case C-324/05 P, Plus Warenhandelsgesellschaft (POWER/TURKISH POWER, Order of 1 June 2006) - two of which the IPKat blogged at CFI level (here and here) and subsequently lost sight of. In all these cases, Alexander notes, the ECJ considered it unnecessary to proceed to a hearing, holding the appeals to be inadmissible (in Sofass) or manifestly unfounded (in Plus and in Creative Technology). The IPKat adds, you can find orders the same way as you find judgments and Advocate Generals' Opinions, via the "case search" facility - but you don't know they're coming because they're not listed in the diary of forthcoming hearings.