Monday Miscellany

1) Invitation to be involved in IP Project: The Joint Institute for Innovation Policy (JIIP) in Brussels is undertaking the development of an Intellectual Property Rights Protection Index and are looking for help with data collection. The objective of this European study is to collect information on the current state of and the major changes to IP legislation along three categories (substantive law, procedural aspects, and enforcement measures) across 60 countries. The IP rights addressed in this study are patents, industrial designs, trademarks, geographical indications (GIs), copyright and trade secrets. The task involves collecting data about IP Laws and entering the information into an online form. For more information, you can visit their website.

2) The International League of Competition Law (LIDC) National Reports on the question of balancing copyright protection with other freedoms are now available. LIDC posed the question: “To what extent do current exclusions and limitations to copyright strike a fair balance between the rights of owners and fair use by private individuals and others?" Responses are provided from Brazil, Czech Republic, Poland, Germany, Romania and the UK (prepared by our own Eleonora), you can read them here.

3) Call for papers! The United States Patent and Trade Mark Office (USPTO) will be co-hosting this year's IP Statistics for Decision Makers Conference with the Canadian Intellectual Property Office, Mexican Institute of Industrial Property, and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in Mexico City, Mexico on November 14th to 15th. Researchers interested in the topics listed in the call for papers are invited to submit their paper, or an extended abstract of at least three pages, to ipsdm@oecd.org. The deadline is 8th July 2017.

Forthcoming Events:

1) This year, PatentsAct, the patent profession’s regular (but newly named) band night is in aid of the charity Generating Genius. As ever, please support if you can by dropping a tenner in the collection bucket during the course of the evening. The event takes place on Wednesday 5th July, the Old Nick pub in Holborn WC1R4PZ from 7pm.

2) Keltie LLP is hosting a workshop on careers in IP on the 6th July, full details can be found here. The workshop is particularly of interest for qualified in house attorneys and those with an existing practice in IP, as well as IP students.

3) The ERA Academy of European Law’s Annual Conference on European Patent Law 2017, takes place in Brussels on the 26th and 27th October 2017. Furthermore, ERA has kindly offered IPKat readers a special discount of 25% on all our IP related conferences for this year. Please see voucher codes below:

Annual Conference on Trade Marks and Designs in Europe 2017, Alicante, 28 September 2017 – 29 September 2017, Voucher Code: actrademark2017
Annual Conference on European Copyright Law 2017, Trier, 9 November 2017 – 10 November 2017, Voucher Code: accopy2017

Annual Conference on European Patent Law 2017, Brussels, 26 October 2017 – 27 October 2017, Voucher Code: acpatent2017