Referees needed; Rico writes on telecoms

Many readers of this weblog are aware that JIPLP, Oxford University Press's monthly Journal of Intellectual Property Law and Practice, is a refereed journal. Over the past year or so, JIPLP's editor and IPKat team blogger Jeremy has enjoyed the benefit of the opinions of numerous expert referees, drawn from all over the world, as to whether articles submitted to JIPLP fit into the categories of being (i) publishable as they stand, (ii) in need of repair or (iii) beyond salvation.

Above, right: how peer reviewers see themselves; below, left: how disgruntled authors see them

After two years' hard and unremunerated work, it's time to revise the list of referees. So now JIPLP is asking afresh for people to come forward and volunteer their services. Current referees are welcome to nominate themselves again.

If you'd like to be considered as a peer reviewer, please email Jeremy here and head your email "JIPLP ref". If you're not one of the journal's current referees, please give a short note of your experiences and/or qualifications in intellectual property and indicate the areas in which you feel competent to review submissions. Don't feel disheartened if you're not selected. JIPLP needs a panel of around 30 referees and it's quite likely that the number of offers will substantially exceed that figure.


IPKat blogger Jeremy was delighted to receive a postal package containing a law book, which he has been perusing with unashamed admiration. It's Die Umstezung des WTO-Basistelekommunikationsübereinkommens im Europäishcen Gemeinschaftsrecht und im Recht der USA. The author is his former student Rico Baumann, upon whose doctoral thesis this book is based. It is published by German academic research publishers Mensch & Buch, Berlin. This book is all about the implementation of the World Trade Organization's Basic Telecommunications Agreement in European and US law: are EU and US laws in line with their international obligations?

The IPKat can't read it because the text is in German but, knowing how clever Rico is and how complex is the subject-matter, he suspects that he wouldn't have had much of a chance of understanding it even in English.

Bibliographic details: xvi + 475 pages, in paperback. ISBNs 3-86664-128-1 and 978-3-86664-128-0. No significant risk of rupture in the book itself, though non-German readers may strain themselves lifting the necessary German-English dictionaries ..