Monday miscellany

Looking for a job? Public Interest Intellectual Property Advisors, Inc. (PIIPA) is advertising vacancies for three positions: (i) Executive Director, (ii) Communications Manager and (iii) General intern. The Kat hopes that some of his friends and readers will apply.


Good news for those who get fed up with the constant amendments to British statutes that make them hard to handle: the United Kingdom's Intellectual Property Office has published a fresh, if sadly unofficial, consolidation of the Patents Act 1977 together with all the many amendments to it, which you can read in all its glory here.

The IPKat recently expressed his interest (here) in a little-known intellectual property right, with its own set of legal provisions: the European Ecolabel right. Now here's a further development: Regulation 66/2010 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 November 2009 on the EU Ecolabel has just been published on the Official Journal's website here. Article 10 (Market surveillance and control of the use of the EU Ecolabel") deals with the scope of protection and infringement; Article 17 deals with penalties.


Those pesky Smarties are still penetrating the deepest recesses of the IPKat's mailbox. Writes Ben Clossick Thomson (Arnold & Porter): "To find the proper generic term for the confection in question, we obviously need to ask the Smarties themselves, because “ONLY SMARTIES HAVE THE ANSWER” (Reg TM No. 2000618)". Meanwhile the Kat has been asked whether the singular form of "Smarties" is "Smartie" or "Smarty" ...


On the subject of resemblance and Mr Justice Arnold, the IPKat thanks Mark Daniels (Browne Jacobson LLP) for bravely consenting to be named as author of the following item:

"Re the passing resemblance between Arnold J and Mr Incredible's boss, Mr Gilbert Huph, and with reference to the following conversation between said boss and his employee from the Disney family bonanza, any passing similarity could not constitute copyright infringement on a qualitative assessment (not quite sure the analogy works but anyway...)

Gilbert Huph: I'm not happy, Bob. Not happy. Ask me why.
Bob: Okay. Why?
Gilbert Huph: Why what? Be specific, Bob.
Bob: Why are you unhappy?
Gilbert Huph: Your customers make me unhappy.
Bob: Why? Have you gotten complaints?
Gilbert Huph: Complaints I can handle. What I can't handle is your customers' inexplicable knowledge of Insuricare's inner workings. They're experts! Experts, Bob! Exploiting every loophole! Dodging every obstacle! They're penetrating the bureaucracy!"

Following his mention of IPeuropAware last week, the IPKat has been made aware of another European project with a really clunky name: the China IPR SME Helpdesk. -- admittedly, another somewhat 'clunky' name perhaps, but hopefully a useful service. The Kat is sure that these bodies can provide SMEs with lots of advice and assistance in many areas, but has his doubts as to whether the choice of a catchy brand-name is among them.


The copyright industries have sometimes considered education of future consumers to be a powerful weapon in their battle against infringers and file-sharers [Merpel asks, in all innocence, is that one category or two?]. He notes, though, that it may be too late -- if this missive from a reader, sent in respect of his seven-year-old daughter, reflects current educational trends:

"St Pauls CE Primary School : Year 2 Pirate Week
We would like to remind you that year 2 children will be coming to 'Pirate School' on Monday 1st February so should come dressed appropriately! You can go as far as you wish regarding the costume, but there is no pressure to go out and buy anything new [some people say this about recorded music and films ...] as a home made eye patch and hat will be fine".