Friday fantasies

Earlier this week, the IPKat announced that new UK Director of Copyright and Enforcement, Dr Ros Lynch, has kindly agreed to make to meet the IP legal community at the earliest opportunity. He said:

"This is a welcome step and provides a useful opportunity for the UK's many and varied copyright interests to start building a positive relationship with the Copyright Directorate at a time of much flux in copyright law and policy. Law firm BDB is delighted to host the session at its Westminster offices (here) on Thursday 20 March from 5.30pm - 7.30pm when Ros will give a short keynote speech and then be available to mingle and chat. Drinks and nibbles will be provided".

The original email given for responses was incorrect, so if you want to attend just let BDB know in advance by emailing events@bdb-law.co.uk [that's the correct email address!] so that a sufficiency of comestibles can be provided, along with the right name badges.  



French follow Austria and Malta. From our good friend and recent guest Kat Bertrand Sautier comes the news that France passed a law yesterday to approve Europe's Unified Patent Court package, which was signed on February 2013. If your French is up to it, you can read the text of this new law here. Which country will be next? And will the United Kingdom (with or without Scotland) be the last? Readers' comments and suggestions are, as ever, welcome.

Last month IPKat blogmeister Jeremy took a little time out from his regular routine to pay a visit to the fascinating and historically complex city of Belgrade, where he ran a full one-day programme for some 60 good souls from the various offices of Petosevic on one of his pet subjects: how to write good English, especially if you are working in the field of intellectual property law.  It was a long, hard day but a most enjoyable one with lots of questions and answers and an interactive practical exercise for those present.  Jeremy has discovered that a note on this course appears on the Petosevic website, here, together with a selection of photos from the day of which the one posted here is Jeremy's favourite (Context: participants in a negotiation exercise had to explain, naturally in their very best English, the outcome of their negotiation. Outcome: they all did very well).

Around the weblogs.  Queen Mary, University of London, now has a blog to support the peer-reviewed quarterly Queen Mary Journal of Intellectual Property (QMJIP). Visiting it earlier today, this Kat spotted Carolina Pina's write-up of yesterday's IP and Retail Conference, here. Elsewhere, on IP Finance, Neil waxes lyrical on the ethical and commercial dimensions of the contrasting business and aspirations of eLife and Amazon's Kindle.  On the 1709 Blog, guest contributor Pekka Savola is not at all happy with this week's ruling in Svensson, for more than one reason.  Meanwhile European trade mark organisation MARQUES is doing a little bit of jubilating: in the same week as its Class 46 weblog welcomed its 3,700th email subscriber, its companion Facebook page has notched up its 200th "like" -- no mean achievement in the tough, serious and thoroughly professional world of European trade mark law and practice.  Finally, Warner Music's Julia Montero writes next month's JIPLP Editorial, available in advance on the jiplp weblog (you can also check out the contents of the March JIPLP on the same blog, here).