Never Too Late: if you missed the IPKat last week ...

Last week was another phenomenally busy one for the IPKat blogging team, a week in which we received over 60,000 casual visitors and a whole hatful of new email subscribers.  To help you help navigate the previous week's blogposts, here is the regular weekly summary which has again been artfully stitched together by Katfriend extraordinaire Alberto Bellan for your comfort and convenience. So, if you missed the action on this weblog last week, here is Round-up 73:

* Night Watch, Why Not? The art of trade markapplication
Everyone who filed a Benelux trade mark application between 13 September and 14 November was promised a gift in the form of a painting of their new trade mark by the lovely Benelux PTO. Katfriend Bas Kist (partner in Dutch trade mark and branding practice Chiever) takes up the tale. 

* The European Patent Office
Merpel had been receiving a number of alarming emails about something big going on at the European Patent Office (EPO). None of them came from the EPO itself, though. 

* Eponia: Land of Suspense and Suspensions
And here’s what all those emails were about! The European Patent Office (EPO) has been in some turmoil this week following the suspension of several union officials. Events have moved quicker than Merpel’s typing paws. 

* Former judge says actions of AC and Battistelli"devoid of any legal basis"
Prof Dr Siegfried Broß is a highly respected former judge, who sat for 12 years on the Patent Division of the Federal Court of Justice and for a further 12 years on the Federal Constitutional Court.  Merpel has an English version of his interview by Juve, a German review for lawyers, translated into English.  

* Format fight brews as Barry refuses to be silencedover the Voice
Katfriend and occasional contributor Emma Perot writes up a Dutch dispute concerning a topic that leaps into the limelight for a short while and then vanishes for an age: the legal protection of TV show formats.   

* Plunging off the abyss -- or merely grinding to ahalt? More bad news from Eponia
“We have a patent application which has been sitting untouched on an examiner’s desk in the EPO for over 10 years”, writes a friend to Merpel. And this not the only malfunction affecting the EPO, Merpel observes.  

* Encouraging creativity and IP awareness: UK intensifies its Cracking Ideas programme
On Tuesday of last week, this Kat posted (second item down) a note on the UK Intellectual Property Office's intention to spreading the word about intellectual property to the wider community and its renewed commitment to its Cracking Ideas programme together with Wallace & Gromit. By way of a follow-up, here's a comment on Cracking Ideas from Katfriend Ronan Deazley, an IP professor at Queen's University Belfast. 

* Copyright term, authorship and moral rights: the intriguing tale of Anne Frank's Diary
Occasional contributor and scholar Mira T. Sundara Rajan discusses the copyright aspects of an intriguing, historically significant and sensitive topic, this being Anne Frank’s Diary. 

* By Juve! The EPO responds to Professor Broß
After hosting the strong criticism of the legal basis of certain decisions taken by the Administrative Council of the European Patent Organisation and the President of the EPO by a German former constitutional Judge (Katpost with English translation of that interview here), the respected German law publication Juve had just published a rebuttal, by EPO Vice-President Raimund Lutz.   

* Down the Tubes: will Chambers' efforts go unrewarded?Here’s a guest post from Katfriend and former Guest Kat Rebecca Gulbul on an attempt by a disappointed entrepreneur to leverage a spot of compensation from an organisation that is known to its users as a body which is far better at taking money than at giving it away, as any visitor to London will know to their cost -- Transport for London. 

* Why the Enlarged Board rejected the AC in September
Merpel has finally had sight of the written decision of the Enlarged Board of Appeal (EBA) in which it rejected the request made by the Administrative Council (AC) chairman, Mr Kongstad, seeking the dismissal of a Board Member for the events leading up to the House Ban. This is a first, high level post … 

* Read it for yourself: Enlarged Board decision Art 23 1/15
…  and here’s the decision proper. 

* When does a broadcasting organisation not communicate works to the public? CJEU has its say, speaking of "copyrighted" works but not much of "new" public
Eleonora gives an account of this brand-new decision by the Court of Justice of the European Union in SBS Belgium v SABAM Case C-325/14, which concerned the right of communication to the public within Article 3(1) of Directive 2001/29 as applied to TV programmes transmitted via direct injection. No idea what “direct injection is about”? Neither did I, before reading this post by eLAWonora! 

* The best coffee brand that you never heard of: COFIX as the brand of the year
Neil tells of his brand of the year, an Israeli company that started with selling coffee and ended up with becoming a true, fulfilling brand experience involving many other goods. 

* IP Enforcement and Anti-Counterfeiting in China: A‘Golden Era’ of Progress?
At the end of October, as part of the China state visit to the UK, the China-Britain Business Council and British Chamber of Commerce in China hosted the third UK-China Intellectual Property Symposium at The Royal Society. Katfriend Nick Buckland (Irwin Mitchell) reports. 

* Munch ado about nothing? Oslo City Council seeks iconic registrations
Thomas Hvammen Nicholson (Protector IP Consultants AS, Norway) writes about the trade mark registrability, or otherwise, of some iconic artwork in Norway. 

* Digital files "property", says court in "female patronage" case
From Katfriend Ken Moon (IP/IT consultant to AJ Park, Auckland, New Zealand) comes this most helpful analysis of Jonathan Dixon v The Queen [2015] NZSC 147,a New Zealand Supreme Court ruling that goes further than traditional British rulings by analogising digital files to "property". 

* Risotto ruling, or how our Italian friends enjoy themselves ...
From Katfriend Anna Maria Stein comes a report of a truly fun event, though it has a thoroughly serious dimension to it. This event, hosted in the Triennale Museum, Milan, was a mock trial of one of the most renowned creations by the Italian Chef Gualtiero Marchesi -- a risotto called “Riso oro e zafferano”. 

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PREVIOUSLY, ON NEVER TOO LATE 

Never Too Late 72 [week ending on Sunday 15 November] –  Merck Sharp & Dohme v Ono Pharmaceutical | Warner-Lambert Co LLC v Sandoz GmbH, Sandoz Ltd and Lloyds Pharmcacy Ltd | Economics of internet trolls | UK IPO scammer scammed | Video conferencing at the EPO | Warner-Lambert v Pfizer in France | African Ministerial Conference in IP | Green claims and branding | CJEU in Case C‑572/13, Hewlett-Packard Belgium SPRL v Reprobel SCRL | World IP Report | New reference on blocking injuctions reaches the CJEU | Helme & Others v Maher & Another | European fruit and vegetables threatened by patent | 

Never Too Late 71 [week ending on Sunday 8 November] –  Article 112a EPC 2000 in EPO BoA R 0016/13 and R0002/15 | US Court on copyright over a 3-word phrase | EPO pauses poisonous-priority proceedings | Spain and right to be forgotten | Scotland NTS and IP | The Tartan Army Limited v Sett Gmbh, Oliver Reifler, Iain Emerson and Alba Football Fans Limited | New EU copyright exclusive! | EPO BoA plays better in 10 men | Maps and databases in C-490/14 Verlag Esterbauer | Yoga and copyright | Reid Hoffman and networks | The Lyrica patent dispute | TPP backlash. 

Never Too Late 70 [week ending on Sunday 1 November] –  Case T-309/13 Enosi Mastichoparagogon Chiou v OHIM, Gaba International Holding GmbH | Sixteen millions IPKats | Tomaydo-Tomahhdo LLC v George Vozray et al | Lookalike packaging | Parasite copying | 3D printing | Labouring the point? EPO dispute culture festers. 

Never Too Late 69 [week ending on Sunday 25 October] –  The 10 Commandments of IP Dispute Resolution | Republic of Cyprus v OHIM on halloumi | Case C-20/14 BGW Marketing- & Management-Service GmbH v Bodo Scholz | Passing off at common law and statutory passing off | Coty v Stadtsparkasse, back to Germany | EU Trade Secrets Draft Directive | “GREASECUTTER” and General Court | IP in the Fashion Industry | AIPPI 46^th World IP Congress.