For those of you who have just returned from your Easter break ...

Last week saw a good deal of activity on this weblog, which coincided with a good deal of inactivity on the part of many of our readers who took the opportunity to have a bit of a holiday break.  Accordingly the IPKat, after due consultation with Merpel, thought it might be a good idea to welcome you back with a quick update.

Three Kats and friends at the opening of this year's Fordham event

Three Kats (Jeremy, Annsley and Eleonora) attended this year's Fordham Intellectual Property Conference -- an event which we cannot recommend highly enough.  The participants are drawn from some of the leading members of the judiciary, in-house and private practice and academe and the two days are devoted to an intensive pursuit of a deeper understanding of IP. Here you get a warm appreciation of the golden glow of IP at its finest, and also a dark intimation of what IP law produces at its worst.  No-nonsense, highly-focused presentations are closely followed and finely analyses. Anyone presuming to misappropriate more than his allotted number of minutes (anything between 8 and 15) is unceremoniously guillotined. It's an environment in which no holds are barred, no questions are off-limits, no quarter spared.  Hugh Hansen, inventor of the Fordham formula and pretty well synonymous with it, has done the IP community an immense favour by coining this template, and we Kats thank him gratefully for having done so.

The following sessions of this year's conference were noted on this weblog:

• Multilateral and FTA (that's Free Trade Area) Law and Policy, here
• IP Leaders here
• Enforcement issues here
• Trade Mark Law and the CJEU here
• Multilateral developments here
• Perspectives from Intellectual Property Pioneers here
• The European Unitary Patent and the Unified Patent Court here
• General Counsel Roundtable, by Annsley, here
• IP industries' contribution to economic performance and the public's opinion thereof here

And here are some sessions that were noted by members of the IPKat team on other blogs:

• Fair use and freedom of speech (1709 Blog, here)
• Copyright revision round the world (1709 Blog, here)
• Copyright enforcement (1709 Blog, here)
• Aereo (1709 Blog, here)
• General Counsel Roundtable, by Jeremy (IP Finance weblog, here)
• SPCs (The SPC Blog, here)
• Trade marks at Fordham (Class 46, here)

Two further reports are still to come.  One covers the session on developments before the US Trademark Trial and Appeal Board. This report, which has been kindly prepared for us by OHIM Mediator, Board of Appeal member and regular Fordham participant Gordon Humphreys, will be posted within the next day or so.  There will also be a report on the inter partes review procedure in US patent law.

For those whose interests extended beyond Fordham, we ran the following posts last week, which may have been a bit swamped by all those Fordham postings:

• Tuesday Titivation (a brief round-up by Darren S), here
• Pipcu prevails, counterfeiter calamities and now YOU can be a trade mark 'intern' on your smartphone! (a trilogy of anti-piracy titbits from Darren M), here
• “Quentin, come here!” -- a plea for Tarantino’s copyright litigation in Europe (a bit of typical creativity from Alberto), here
• Wednesday whimsies, as usual ... here
• The EPO Rules on Strikes Revealed to Merpel, here
• BREAKING NEWS: AGCOM issues the first fastissimo administrative blocking injunction (Alberto again, this time in serious mode, here)
• Spanish Napster defeats music majors (posted by Alberto for guest contributor Carlos Garcia Berned, here)
• Phil & Ted's Most Excellent Buggy Company Limited prevails in patent dispute on baby buggies (a Most Excellent analysis by Darren S, here)
• Own Your (Trade Mark) Power! A fascinating glimpse into the world of US celebrity litigation, posted by ?Jeremy for guest blogger Marie-Andrée Weiss, here
• Smartphone brands: cachet or commodity? Neil's Thought for the Week, here

Things should be getting back to normal now. Our apologies to those readers who felt a bit bombarded by Fordham -- and to those returning to work who have had so many emails awaiting them on their first day back.

Have a great summer!