Friday fantasies

Friday comes but once a week,
And with it is the need to peek
At all the things you might have missed
In the Forthcoming Events list ...

Have you ever felt that applying for a European patent was a bit of a gamble? Well, you're right! According to this piece in Lighting Press International (LPI),

"Shining a light on patents and innovations" is the slogan on the European Patent Office website [It's not on the front page: it's archived here from September 2008. At least the light isn't represented by the dreaded lightbulb cliche]. And this truly hits the nail on the head — the light metaphor perfectly elucidates the activities and positioning of the European Patent Office. ...

With its size, its details and its spectacular view of the sprawling track network of the Munich railway station, the EPO casino is a very special location in the city".

Casino? You bet! Thank you, Anne Hargreaves (Priory Translations), for drawing the Kats' attention to this de-lightful prospect ...


... and talking of delightful prospects, the Copyright Association of Ireland, together with the Irish Centre for Human Rights, have cooperated to host a virtually spontaneous event next Monday. It's a talk, "TRIPS at 15: what are the 'trade related aspects' of intellectual property in 2010?", by the IPKat's good friend, scholar and thinker Antony Taubman (Director, Intellectual Property Division, World Trade Organisation). This is a daytime do, kicking off at 11am in European Union House, 18 Dawson Street, Dublin 2. Just turn up: you'll be welcome, and you won't be disappointed!

A request from one of the IPKat's best long-term readers and correspondents runs as follows:

"As a native English-speaker, I get called on to improve the technical English of our [non-English] PhD students as well as my normal duties; I do this via computer-implemented lessons. I take a scientific subject, and introduce relevant English from that field. One of the two fields I will be covering the next academic year concerns Scientific Policy, and for one of the lessons, I want to use the patentability of biotech inventions as the peg (I am currently part of a "Bio-Environmental Chemistry" research and education programme). Accordingly I am looking for, ideally, one or more public domain video clips of someone discussing (in English) the various pros-and cons of biotech patents.

Do you know of anything like this that i could use? Something like Alison Brimelow commenting on G 2/06 would be ideal, for instance, but I doubt something like that exists.

Or perhaps someone has a video of a conference speaker talking on such an issue somewhere that they wouldn't mind me using".

If anyone can help the IPKat's friend, can he or she please either email the IPKat at the usual email address or, preferably, post the info below.


Ever sympathetic to the problems faced by public sector bodies that run conferences but have no money to market them, the IPKat is pleased to make a kind mention of "A Holistic Perspective on the Practical Use of IP in the Digital Creative Industries", held at the University of Abertay Dundee, Scotland, on 1 and 2 September next. As patent attorney-turned-university-administrator Margaret Hartnett explains:

"This University is internationally recognised for advanced education in the area of computer games development; and is home to Scotland’s first National Centre for Excellence in Computer Games Education and the UK’s pre-eminent game workplace simulation competition “Dare to be Digital” [Says the IPKat, education was never so much fun when I was at college ...]. The city of Dundee is a hot-bed for games companies (with more than half of Scotland’s games firms based in the city) and games developers/designers (a large number of whom have been educated at Abertay). In the recent UK Research Assessment Exercise, Abertay was found to be the best modern university in Scotland for research in law.

The rationale of the conference is that of presenting a holistic legal and commercial perspective on the practical use of IP in the digital creative industries. More particularly, in this conference, the University aims to:
* leverage on its unique skills and expertise to continue its contribution to cutting edge discussions at the frontiers of law and computer games education; and
* provide a forum for the exchange of ideas, and insights gleaned from experiences into the practical commercial use of IP in the digital creative industry".

You can find out more about this conference here.


Finally thanks, says the IPKat, to Miri Frankel for this link to a cute little piece in The Onion on who might be the favourites to reach the World Cup Final.