IP enforcement in verse: the best limericks

The IPKat's competition for which the prize was complimentary admission to next month's IP Enforcement Conference ground to a miserable halt when the conference sadly had to be cancelled. The limericks, however, are of some substantial interest and some of them deserve an airing on this weblog.

Andy Clemson (Senior Assistant, Cleveland) was closely focused on trade mark matters. Thus his two entries ran as follows:

“I have an infringed mark” he did claim;
And he had some defendants to name;
So he sought an injunction;
And costs in conjunction;
And success! The court found them to blame.

A third party was using his mark;
So, on a court case he chose to embark;
To seek the endorsement;
Of the mark for enforcement;
But the claim was misfiled by the clerk.

It's not known whether Andy Clemson knows Mary Smillie (Associate, Bird & Bird), but the first of her offerings makes an allusion to him:

There was a young lady called Mandy
Who bought a bag from the market - it was handy,
Her friends thought - she's rich
A Louis Vuitton - what a bitch
Until arrested by an officer called Andy.

But the IPKat preferred this attempt from her:

There was a Customs fellah from Dover
Who checked imported goods over
He looked in each box
Compared the goods with his docs
And confiscated the fake Kat called Rover!

Lindesay Low (Legal Adviser, Legal Affairs Department, Scotch Whisky Association) might have been reflecting on the Philips and Nokia references to the Court of Justice when she penned this:

A container of fake Chinese brands,
Fell right into Customs’ hands,
Did they seize it? Oh, no
They just let it go
It was destined for far away lands!

From Henry Ward (8 New Square) comes this epic, which he names "A Cautionary Tale – Part 44"

There was a young man from Manila,
Who’d scored all the music to “Thriller”.
When the bootlegs came out,
He feared that he’d get nowt,
So he took out a quick Anton Piller.

The search order did its main function,
At a warehouse just by Clapham Junction.
Knock-off discs in a heap,
Were found in the sweep,
And our hero he got his injunction.

The trial itself took quite a while,
As his Silk had a ponderous style,
But a week was enough,
To wade through all the stuff,
And our man got his Judgment on file.

All was quite well or so you would think,
And the crooks were all locked in the clink,
But then came the fees,
“OH MY GOD, they’re WHAT? JEEZ!”
“They’re enough to make Donald Trump blink!”

The amounts that were owed were absurd,
They worked out at some nine quid a word,
And what he recouped,
From the “jackpot” he’d scooped,
Was a quarter of what he’d incurred.

“Well I know just how Pyrrhus did feel”
Said our man at the thought of appeal,
“If there’d just been a cap,
To get round this trap,
Well I’d not have had such a raw deal.”

So there is just one moral you see,
Though us fee-earners may disagree,
To keep hold of your purse,
Go to HHJ Birss!
Transfer it to the new PCC ...

The Kat ventures to suggest that the Part 44 in the title might be this one.

Next up is Helen Thomas-Peter (Registered Trade Mark Attorney, Walker Morris), who offers us this:

The doughty ex-coppers from FACT
Are blessed with extraordinary tact
But those that they raid
Should be rightly afraid
'Cause they'll use the full force of the Act.

To conclude this  little selection, here's a couple of tasteful creations, sent in by a talented reader who is clearly under-challenged by the duties imposed by his employment in examining applications for registration of a well-known intellectual property right and whose identity, for that reason, is best kept anonymous (nb these limericks are not connected):

Last week HM Customs in Hull
Had a week far from dull.
They seized a few loads
Of counterfeit toads
And fed them to their mascot seagull.

A patrol of the border police
On their beat between Turkey and Greece
Caught a load full of fakes
But when they had to go to the Jakes
They found the goods infested with fleas.

Henry's the winner!  But now the IPKat will have to negotiate an alternative prize ...