Latest JIPLP

Way ahead of schedule, the May 2008 issue of the Journal of Intellectual Property Law (JIPLP), published monthly by Oxford University Press, has emerged to greet the springtime daylight. In the Editorial, "Good stuff, shame about the bad press", IPKat team blogger Jeremy writes about the very negative write-ups that IP gets these days. After a mention of the Intellectual Property Institute's project to examine IP as a "tainted brand" he says:

"At the time of writing, the IPI project is still very much in the category of ‘work in progress’. The preliminary findings are, as one might expect, that the use of terminology such as ‘piracy’, ‘troll’, ‘theft’, ‘freedom’, and ‘access’ both colour and are coloured by the attitudes taken or learned by those who use them. However, the extent and nature of their use is now being made clear. Few readers of this journal would assume, in the absence of clear evidence, that disciplines such as Gender Studies invoke IP issues the way they do. For example patent rights, by limiting the ability of the mother in the developing country to gain access to necessary seed, is a ‘male’ impingement on her role in feeding her children. Or try this: the technology-rich developed country performs the active masculine role, whereas the technology-deficient developing country fulfils the female role of the passive recipient.

The preliminary study also shows how the pro- and anti-IP lobbies employ the same vocabularies against one other, in different spheres. Thus, the copyright and entertainment industries accuse those who take and use their products of piracy—precisely the same term which is used in the context of bio-piracy, the alleged practice of stealing naturally occurring products and rebadging them as patentable ones.

This study makes one thing quite clear: attitudes toward IP rights focus principally upon their negative qualities and do not connect them with that which is positive. Thus, new medicines save lives, while patents kill; music is cool, while copyright is a clamp; brands are brilliant, while trade marks are tools of trade manipulation. It is too much to hope that the public at large will wake up one morning, enlightened at the beneficial, positive, and above all necessary role played by IP rights, but we can at least aspire to teach that, between that which they praise and that which they condemn, there is a powerful causative connection".

This is the hors-d'ouevres. The main courses in this issue include

* A fifteen-page review by OHIM's Arnaud Folliard-Monguiral and the EPO's David Rogers of all the significant case law from 2007 on Community trade marks, taking in Court of Justice and Court of First Instance decisions;

* "Post-termination use of licensed intellectual property by licensees" by Allen & Overy's Colin Pearson and Nigel Parker, a reminder of how important it can be, before a licence is granted, to consider the relations of IP owner and licensee once the licence expires or is terminated;

* "Influence of WTO decisions on international intellectual property" by Italian academic and international scholar Fabrizio Ravida, a searching piece that seeks to integrate WTO rulings into the general scheme of national application of IP treaty norms, one example being the classic three-step test for acceptable limitations and exceptions to copyright;

* "The W***D C*P of 2*1*: FIFA's intellectual property rights in South Africa", a fairly acerbic review by Unisa academic and Afro-IP blogger Roshana Kelbrick of the steps taken by FIFA to protect the next World Cup tournament from what football's governing body -- but not everyone else -- regards as unfair exploitation.

Read this editorial in full, and all the editorials of the past twelve months, here
Full contents of this issue here
For free sample, click here; to subscribe, click here; to write, click here
50 most-read articles since 2005 here


Loads of free samples of JIPLP will be available at the Oxford University Press booth at the forthcoming International Trademark Association Meeting in Berlin next month. If you're there, do come up and say "hello" -- particularly if you'd like to write for the journal and/or have any brilliant ideas for things you'd like other people to write.