Friday fantasies

Following the recent IPKat posts concerning the provenance of LEGO bricks (here and here), this Kat has continued to receive correspondence from nostalgia-driven IP lawyers, litigants and leading personalities who simply want to have it recorded for posterity that some of the happiest moments of their lives were spent playing with nearly indestructible brightly coloured plastic bricks. To please them and others, the Kat features two illustrations here. To the left is an illustration taken from the specification of Hilary Page's patent. To the right is a picture of a box of Kiddicraft Self-Locking Building Bricks -- a real mouthful when compared to the short, snappy trade mark Lego".

There is no truth in the rumour that
IPReg is considering the introduction
of automated IP Litigators ...

IPReg -- the UK's Intellectual Property Regulation Board -- is the body that oversees examinations and professional training for the nation's patent and trade mark attorneys. It is also the body that deals with the representation by those professions of their clients in litigation. Earlier this month an announcement on the website of IPReg proclaimed:

"We have recently launched our 2nd Consultation on Litigators' Rights and the consultation papers can be found in the Consultations section of our website. For the IPReg response document to the 1st consultation follow this link"

The IPKat's attention was drawn to this item by Nicholas Fox (Of Counsel, Simmons & Simmons LLP), who observes that this consultation may be quite a rare event -- a consultation in which a regulator actually listened to its consultees. The IPReg response document, which is not very long, makes fascinating reading: it covers many of our favourite debating points too: How do you define "intellectual property"? How do you treat the fact that IP practitioners aren't generally expert in all areas of IP? How can IP litigators be suitably trained -- and kept fit post-training? And who pays for all of this?

Around the weblogs.  The 1709 Blog's '12 for 2012' series of authors and creators who died in 1941 and whose works will be unprotected by copyright in "life plus 70 year" term countries from 2012 has now posted notes on Elizabeth Madox Roberts and Virginia Woolf. On the same blog, Asim Singh brings us up to date on the French position regarding remuneration for private copying.  There's also a note by Ian P. Hartwell for the IP Finance blog on the need to put intellectual asset management within its sectoral context, here. Finally, Art & Artifice features Albrecht Dürer's response to sellers of 'AD' fakes.

There is no dinner at Tiffany's. "Tiffany's takes a bite out of Coca-Cola's Big Apple dream offer" is the title of this newsy piece in The Telegraph which the IPKat's friend Kingsley Egbuonu has drawn to his attention. At its heart is an imaginative British promotion for the SAB Miller-owned Appletiser drink which is made and sold in the UK by Coca-Cola.  The promotion was offering a dream trip to New York with flights, accommodation, a Broadway show and limousine transfers for two -- leading up to "dinner for two at Tiffany's 5th Avenue store followed by a personal shopping experience and a £1,000 Tiffany's gift card". Tiffany's has objected and issued legal proceedings against Coca-Cola, alleging trade mark infringement and declaring:

"There is no dinner at Tiffany's. There is no personal shopping experience. These things are only organised by invitation from Tiffany's. The issue we have is that Coca-Cola launched its promotion using the Tiffany's trade mark without our authorisation".

Tiffany's is also tilting its legal weaponry against the Asda (Walmart), Tesco, Sainsbury's and Morrisons supermarket chains, at least three of which are reputed to have settled. Fascinating, says Merpel, but is there a trade mark infringement ...?