Wednesday whimsies

IPKat and 1709 Blog team member Eleonora will be a panellist at the forthcoming 21st annual Fordham IP Conference, which will be held in New York City on 24 and 25 April 2014. As it invariably happens there, key IP personalities - including members of the judiciary, academics and policy makers - will be discussing highly topical recent developments. Eleonora will be presenting on recent EU copyright developments, and orphan works & extended collective licensing. She will be also attending the following sessions, as per the latest draft programme:

• EU Copyright: Recent Developments;
• Copyright Reform: U.S., EU and other Countries;
• Fair Use & Freedom of Speech;
• Orphan Works and Extended Collective Licensing;
• U.S. Copyright: Recent Developments;
• Public Performance (including Aereo).

On her return, this enterprising Kat is conducting a Post-Fordham Catch-Up Event, for which you can register here. This event, which will take place in Central London on 6 May from 1600 to 1800 (BST), will be limited to 20 participants, so to provide copyright enthusiasts with the opportunity to discuss fully the present and future of copyright in the EU and US, as well as related challenges. Registration is just £48 (three spaces are being held for students at £16). A further event will be held if there is sufficient demand.

"Now, where did I put
that gun ...?"

Around the weblogs.  Katfriend and occasional guest blogger Paul England has written a neat piece for PatLit on a very recent Court of Appeal ruling on the prospects of adjourning national patent infringement and invalidity proceedings in order to apply to the European Patent Office for the patent to be amended. Another Katfriend and occasional guest contributor to this weblog, Lucas Michels, gives his own take on the ArmaLite David episode (on which see Alberto's Katpost here); you can find Lucas's item on Art & Artifice. Elsewhere, the 1709 Blog is now running a sidebar poll in the wake of Eleonora's post here on the fate of copyright protection on a category-by-category basis, while John Enser rightly praises the EU Law Radar blog when he discusses the CJEU reference in Case C-30/14 Ryanair on whether and, if so, how, the Irish airline's booking system is IP-protected. The jiplp weblog features the full text of a forthcoming JIPLP note by Gary Moss and Emma Muncey (EIP Legal) on the assessment of damages under a cross-undertaking where the court had made an interim order at the request of a patent owner in respect of what turns out not to be a patent infringement after all.

Happy birthday CEIPI. The Centre for International Intellectual Property Studies, or Centre d'Etudes Internationales de la Propriété Intellectuelle if you prefer the original French, is organising an international conference on 27-28 November 2014 at the Council of Europe, Strasbourg, on the topic: “Perspectives for the Intellectual Property System in a Globalised World”.  According to CEIPI:

"This international conference intends to bring together high-ranking IP officials and representatives of public institutions, renowned IP scholars, professionals and representatives in industries heavily dependent on intellectual property rights, to exchange perspectives on past and present shifts in IP, and to map ways for future development of the European and international IP systems in a globalised world". 

The three parts of the conference will be opened with keynote speeches by the highest representatives of the major organisations in the area of intellectual property, but there's plenty of interesting stuff as well. To find out more, just click here.  The Kats salute CEIPI on its major contribution to the understanding of IP during the past half century, and Merpel adds the hope that the organisation will mark this event with a little rebranding, treating itself to a bright, exciting logo to replace the old one which is looking a bit washed out ...

New QMJIP.  The latest issue of the Queen Mary Journal of Intellectual Property -- the deliciously unpronounceable QMJIP -- is now available both online and in print. As is well known among those who really appreciate getting something for nothing, each issue of QMJIP features an article that is absolutely free.  The freebie for Volume 4, Issue 1 is "Data mining in UK higher education institutions: law and policy" by Katfriend and fabled TechnoLlama Andres Guadamuz, together with Diane Cabell. You can access it here. QMJIP also has its own very serious Kat-free, indeed illustration-free weblog, which you can sample here.

Looking for Tuvalu ...

Making waves.  Some happenings in the world of IP are quite momentous and really make waves; others just make ripples.  The tiny (26 square km), lovely island of Tuvalu is presumably hoping that its accession to the WIPO Treaty will make neither waves nor ripples, since either might result in its disappearance beneath that vast expanse of water, the Pacific Ocean.  According to WIPO Notification No. 217 Convention establishing the World Intellectual Property Organization (here), the Government of Tuvalu deposited its instrument of accession to the WIPO Convention on 4 March; it will enter into force for Tuvalu on 4 June 2014.

TIPLO, The Intellectual Property Lawyers Organisation, is preparing for its next eat-in, which takes place on Tuesday 25 March 2014 in The Old Court Room, Lincoln's Inn, London. The Subject? "UK Long arm jurisdiction in IP disputes". On the menu? New silks Tom Mitcheson and Andrew Lykiardopoulos. In the chair? Lord Hoffmann. Topics to be touched upon include the effect of the Supreme Court decision in Lucasfilms v Ainsworth, whether barristers should ditch their wigs in favour of the rather more egalitarian headgear illustrated on the right, and lots more besides.  Click here for dinner registration.

You won't see many of these ...

A week later, if your appetite has returned by then, you can make your way to the Competition Law Association's 16th Annual Burrell Lecture and Dinner on Tuesday 1 April. This year's speaker will be The Right Honourable the Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury, President of the Supreme Court. The title, "Intellectual Property: European Tribunals & UK Courts", is guaranteed to be a good deal less exciting than the speech itself.  Members of the IP and competition law fraternities will be in evidence, and CPD points are available for anyone who attends the eating meeting.  Details may be obtained here.