Wednesday whimsies

Patent attorneys offer free IP advice. As a goodwill gesture on World IP Day, next Monday, 26 April, members of the Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys (CIPA) will be offering free intellectual property advice to businesses. Patent attorneys in London, Manchester and Leicester will be running seminars or providing free consultancy sessions on different types of IP, including patents, trade marks and registered designs are offering sessions which are aimed at small to medium enterprises which want to find out more about the benefits of integrating effective IP management into their business strategy [presumably this means prospective clients, says Merpel, since existing clients will already know about these benefits]. The session are as follows:

• London: Gill Jennings & Every, 20-minute consultations between 10.0 and 16.00. Contact David Stead, dcs@gje.co.uk, tel: 0207 377 1377; Mewburn Ellis LLP, 30-minute consultations on the day or later. Contact Rachel.Oxley@Mewburn.com.


• Manchester: Harrison Goddard Foote, trade mark seminar from 6-7pm entitled ‘Trade Marks - Best Practice for Business'. Contact jpownall@hgf.com, tel: 0161 247 4900.


• Leicester: Serjeants, 30-minute consultations to anybody who pre-books a slot. Contact dathacker@serjeants.co.uk, tel: 0116 233 2626.

The Indian Journal of International Economic Law (IJIEL) is proud to invite submissions for the first IJIEL International Student Essay Competition. The essay topic is ‘TRIPS-plus Obligations and Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) with Developing Countries’. Professors Carlos M Correa and Daniel J Gervais are to judge the best five entries to determine the winner, who gets a prize of $750 (the runner-up gets a prize of $250). The top few entries will be considered for publication in the third issue (2010) of IJIEL, subject to editorial policy. The competition is open to "all students" but excludes "postgraduate and doctoral candidates" [work that one out, says the Kat] and the deadline for submissions is 15 June 2010. Detailed rules and information about IJIEL may be found here.


"The Limits of Antitrust Revisited" is the theme of the current issue (volume 6, no.1) of Oxford University Press's handsome quarterly journal, the Journal of Competition Law & Economics (JCLE). Although the articles are somewhat scary for most regular intellectual property folk and some even contain algebra, there is no doubt regarding their relevance to intellectual property issues, of which refusal to grant a licence is but one. For a good look at the contents of this issue click here.


An altogether easier read is the 2009-2010 edition of The Secrets to Winning Trade Secret Cases, by Randall E. Kahnke and Kerry L. Bundy [what happens to Americans without middle initials, wonders Merpel: do they ever get jobs with law firms?] of the Faegre & Benson LLP Trade Secret Practice Team. Published by West, this paperback contains some 450 pages of advice, aphorisms, weird cartoons -- and even some law. Randall and Kerry are the Big Names that lead, but a team of 16 colleagues is acknowledged too.

Only the first 250 pages or so are the bits you have to read: the rest consists of Appendices containing materials as diverse as statutory texts and jury instructions. The takeaway message seems to be that, if there's one thing worse for a business than not having a trade secrets policy, it's having a policy and then not implementing it. It may not be a scholarly classic, says the IPKat, but it's a book you read rather than leave on the shelf -- and you come away from it feeling that you've learned a thing or two. You can get further particulars of this book from the publisher here.