Three from EE

Emerging Issues In Intellectual Property: Trade, Technology and Market Freedom is a handsome collection of Essays in Honour of Herchel Smith which has been edited by Guido Westkamp (Queen Mary Intellectual Property Research Institute, London). Guido tells the IPKat that he personally chose the colour scheme for the front colour, but the truth is that the contents are even more striking. Unfortunately the English-speaking world doesn't go in very much for Festschriften, preferring to read biographies of people who are little more than children (examples here and here) to the paying of scholarly respect to a man who gave the world the opportunities for recreational sex that seem to fill most mass-circulation publications these days.

IPKat team blogger Jeremy has an interest in this volume, having penned "The Confusing Case of Mr Smith – Herchel Smith as Litigant", a slightly whimsical concoction that gives a brief account of the man and the surname with which he was indissolubly associated. Lots of other Queen Mary Intellectual Property Research Institute luminaries feature in this volume -- pretty much an A-Z, with Daphne Zographos (now lecturing in IP at Reading University) being the "Z" and giving an account of the battle between legal rights and human sensitivities that has raged round the use of the term "Washington Redskins".

Bibliographic details: publisher Edward Elgar, October 2007, 432 pp. Hardback 978 1 84542 775 7. £95 (but with online discount it's just £76). Rupture factor small (if all you do is lift the book) or large (if you read it and find its contents side-splittingly funny ...). Full details of this work here


The Kat is happy to welcome one of his favourite sequels -- New Directions In Copyright Law, Volume 5, edited by Fiona Macmillan, School of Law, Birkbeck, University of London. As with the earlier volumes, this New Directions positively sizzles with interesting and imaginative topics. Three cheers for Uma Suthersanen's "Copyright Law: A Stakeholders’ Palimpsest" (left), the most brazen attempt this year to reinstate 'palimpsest' as an item of vocabulary in the minds of those who find it difficult to comprehend any word that doesn't begin "i-" or "e-". Mind how you use the word, warns the IPKat: you and your readers may be at cross purposes. Take a look, too, at "Fertile Ground: Law, Innovation and Creative Technologies". No, this isn't another oblique reference to Herchel Smith's activities in the laboratory, but rather a good chapter from Kathy Bowrey.

Bibliographic details: published by Edward Elgar 2007. 240pp Hardback. ISBN 978 1 84542 264 6. Price £59.95 ( with online discount, £53.96). Full contents and ordering details here. Rupture factor: no problem.


Finally, take a bow, Intellectual Property and TRIPs Compliance In China: Chinese and European Perspectives, edited by Paul Torremans (School of Law, University of Nottingham, and Faculty of Law, University of Ghent), Hailing Shan (School of International Law, East China University of Politics and Law, Shanghai) and Johan Erauw (Faculty of Law, University of Ghent).

Right: like the panda, the patentee must adapt to a harsh terrain and struggle for survival, though both in China and beyond there is great hope that he will thrive. Both pandas and patentees have great symbolic value in their respective physical and economic environments ...

Says the web-blurb:

"Examining substantive IP law in detail, the contributors conclude that the changes have been far-reaching and TRIPs compliance has been achieved. They also argue that China’s IP laws are now addressing the new challenges of the digital revolution and the global economy. Of equal importance is enforcement, and in this respect the book reveals that change started later and that further work remains to be done. The book highlights the important efforts that are underway and the undeniable progress that is being made. All these issues are placed in an international context, where the development agenda is becoming more important and where the discussion on the renegotiation of the TRIPs has started.

The contributors include leading members of the Chinese judiciary, as well as academics, politicians and practitioners from China, Europe and Canada. The approach taken to the subject combines academic rigorousness with political realism and the practical needs of operating an effective law enforcement and judicial system in a vast and rapidly developing country".

The IPKat has never been persuaded that books on Chinese IP law, and China/TRIPs, are particularly informative. The issues are complex; political and economic sensitivities so often cause those who are not Chinese to tread simultaneously both too lightly and too heavily across the field of study, while the Chinese are frequently reluctant to engage in what is billed as debate but turns into a sort of licensed assault. And above all, linguistic issues demand a degree of attention that can give book production and publication an almost historical flavour. For a small, managable and relatively current introduction to the open wounds and concealed remedies that characterise the China/TRIPs faultline, this volume is probably as good as it gets. Congratulations to the team of editors and contributors for having done as much as they have; without their efforts, even this much would not have been achieved.

Bibliographic details: published by Edward Elgar, 2007. 288pp. Hardback ISBN 978 1 84542 875 4. ~Price £65 (with online discount £58). This book is also available as an ebook, ISBN 978 1 84720 721 0. Full details of contents and how to order here.