Coming soon: CIPA and IPAG's Big Events

Citius, Altius, Fortius ... 

CIPA Congress: of turtles and early birds.  The Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys' annual gathering of the clan, the CIPA Congress 2013, takes place on 3 and 4 October in the lovely, lively location of the Lancaster London Hotel.  Like the Pacific green turtles returning to their ancestral beaches to breed and lay their eggs, the members of this thick-skinned tough and resilient profession convene annually from a multitude of countries -- and indeed continents -- in order to meditate on the survival of their profession into the next decades.  Also, like the green turtle, the patent attorney today must operate in a hostile, competitive and ever-changing ecosystem where the rule of the game is adapt or die.  How will the European patent attorney function when its traditional national feeding grounds are homogenised by a new unitary environment?  Will the pressure of the European Commission crack its carapace?  Will minor subspecies from lands in which patent filing and litigation are scarce be wiped out completely? Will the journey to the rich feeding grounds set aside in Paris, Munich and London prove a trip too far for practitioners from as far away as the Baltic and the Aegean?  And will their nutritious clients be wiped out by predatory trolls?

Kat among the
Early Birds

Come to the Congress if you want to find out what the future holds for the patent attorney, or if you'd like to take part in preserving the functional utility of this splendid creature in the new world of innovation that lies ahead. You won't regret it!  Apart from anything else, you may be able to detect more than a scent of the Kat when you get there.  Two members of the blog team -- patent attorney Darren Smyth (on design right) and patent litigation solicitor Annsley Merelle Ward (in the hot topics session)  -- will be offering their usual combination of wit and wisdom.  A third Kat, blogmeister Jeremy himself, has enjoyed watching this year's programme evolve and has even done something useful, helping his good friend and national treasure Tibor Gold compile a round of the table quiz that would have been the star attraction of the President's Dinner were it not for Mr Justice Birss agreeing to be the guest speaker. Note: you can book your place at Congress here; the Early Bird discount rate expires this Friday, 30 August.


From turtles to axolotls.  Occupying a strange relationship with patent and trade mark attorneys in Europe and beyond is the intellectual property administrator, a species falling within the genus IPAG ('Intellectual Property Administrators Group').  Some IPAG members have a symbiotic relationship with the IP professionals who engage them, performing various office tasks with the speed, accuracy and efficiency that comes with constant practice.  Others, rather like the axolotl in relation to the salamander, might have developed into patent or trade mark attorneys themselves but remained instead in their neonetic state. Anyway, IPAG has a very special conference of its own, which runs annually at the same time, an in the same venue, as that of the CIPA Congress.  You can check out the IPAG programme here.  The IPKat's friends at IPAG tell him that there are “mix n’match discounts available ranging from 10% -25%!”, which may be particularly attractive if you are a patent administrator who hunts in packs.