Wednesday whimsies

Curia-ser and curia-ser  This Kat has noticed that, over the past couple of years, the name of the Court of Justice of the European Union is increasingly being abbreviated to "CJEU" rather than "ECJ" -- the abbreviation which was universally employed by English-language writers when the court was known, rightly or wrongly, as the European Court of Justice. He therefore wrote to the UK Intellectual Property Office (UPO) to ask why it still used "ECJ".  This is the answer he received:

"As the service we provide is a public service, not confined to those who work in the legal services, we have decided to continue with the widely recognised ECJ acronym.
 The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) encompasses the whole institution, of which the Court of Justice is a part [this is indeed the case, notes Merpel]. As the majority of cases that we deal with are heard before the Court of Justice, ECJ would still seem to be a suitable acronym for the service which we provide".

The Kat agrees that the service which the IPO provides is a public service, but this doesn't seem to him to be a relevant factor.  If it were, the IPO would still be calling itself the Patent Office which, apart from being its real, legal name, is what most members of the public know it as.  Also, "ECJ" for "European Court of Justice "is sometimes confused with the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg -- by journalists and many a law student as well as by members of the public.


Last week's IPKat seminar on "The Strange World of IP Consents", noted here, took a little thinking about -- so much so that the IPKat has only just now got down to the task of fulfilling his solemn duty to post the respective speakers' PowerPoint presentations on this weblog for the benefit of those who attended (actually, everyone can have a look at them but if, like this Kat, they can't always extract maximum benefit from PowerPoints relating to presentations that they haven't actually attended, they may be a little mystified by some of their content). Neil's paper can be downloaded here; Mark's can be downloaded here.  One last point: the IPKat can confirm that the number of CPD points available for this event is 1.25. He also has the event code, which he will be happy to share with anyone who attended.

News trickled through to this Kat last week of the death of Paul Jackson following a short illness. Initially the Kat wasn't quite sure what to do, since he counted three people of that name within his wider acquaintances and he didn't know which one it was. Fortunately he subsequently received some guidance in the form of an email from former Intellectual Property Institute chairman Ian Harvey, who explained:

"Paul played a pivotal role in what we now know as Ideas Matter. Back in 2004 John Noble (of British Brands Group), Paul Leonard (Director of the Intellectual Property Institute) and I were searching for someone to help us think about the broad perceptions of intellectual property. We knew that these perceptions were negative [this being decisively demonstrated by "Perceptions of Intellectual Property", a research paper commissioned by the Institute from Roya Ghafele and supevised by this Kat, which you can download from the Institute's website here] but believed that this was inappropriate – but what could we do about it? John introduced us to Paul who became deeply involved in what then became known as the “Brand of IP”. Paul played a central role in bringing together quite disparate people and helping them/us think through this perplexing problem through a quite different set of lenses. Paul managed all the people who became involved and this process, in a way which was calm, thoughtful, deeply mentally engaged but direct in a quite non-threatening way. He continued to help until the emerging ideas were sufficiently well developed for larger companies to understand the issue, pick it up and carry it forward. That became what we now know as “IdeasMatter” – launched in 2012. ... Without Paul this would not have happened. IP plays a central, but still poorly understood role, in creating the quality of life which we enjoy today. And without a good understanding of its importance we will not benefit as we should, and need to, from the ideas and inventions which will create our future. Paul played a central role in this. In this one, probably almost invisible way, the world will be a better place because of what he did here".

The IPKat pays his respects and offers his condolences to Robin Krinzman-Jackson and all Paul's friends and family who will surely greatly miss him.