Monday miscellany

Try doing this when you've
only got paws!

The IPKat has just heard today that the total number of people who have registered for the half-day seminar on Initial Interest Confusion -- that US doctrine which we now seem to have migrated to Europe -- that he's so excited about has now reached the 43 mark. If you've not yet signed up and hope to do so, the details are all here. Don't leave it too late: the lunch is delicious but this Kat is useless at cutting cucumbers at speed.

Do we have an issue
with initial interest
confusion?

ATRIP is the International Association for the Advancement of Teaching and Research in Intellectual  Property, an organisation which this old Kat holds close to his heart since he is one of its founder signatories and was, back in the 1980s, Secretary when Professor William Cornish was President.  Anyway, the Kat learns that the 30th ATRIP Congress has just concluded in Singapore, where it was "benignly hosted by the IP Academy of Singapore and the Law Faculty of the National University of Singapore". The new President elect: is Professor Tana Pistorius and incoming members of the Executive are Professors Daniel Gervais, Susy Frankel, Loy Wee Loon and Jens Schovsbo.  They join re-elected members Professors José Antonio Gomez Segade, Christian LeStanc and Alberto Musso, not to mention the re-elected Treasurer Professor Alexander Peukert. The new President is Professor Graeme Dinwoodie, was installed as the new President of ATRIP for the period 2011-2013. Congratulations, everyone, and well done Professor Jan Rosén, who now steps down as President and can get back to normality!

Serbia welcomes legal software

A headline that caught the Kat's attention comes from the useful and entertaining IP newsletter which originates from his East European friends at Petosevic. The headline, attached to this news item, is "Serbian Scientists to Get Genuine Microsoft Software". He is embarrassed to confess that his first thought was to wonder whether they would know how to use the legal version.  Anyway, it seems that the Serbian government has struck a deal with Microsoft to supply the real thing to all scientists who participate in programmes financed by the Serbian government in the next four years. It is believed that a "significant discount" was negotiated, in a jurisdiction in which "a considerable amount" of locally used software is said to be illegal.  Merpel notes that the British tendency towards understatement appears to be spreading to the East.

Reading the book is the easy bit.
Don't forget the review
(source: Cartoon Clip Art)

Books for review. Just to remind you, the Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice's new policy for transparent and efficient reviewing of intellectual property books is here -- and another five books are up for review here. It may all seem a little tough, but the time has come to make sure that books are reviewed while they are still current, and that people shouldn't think that the receipt of a review copy is some some sort of reward for long service.  Behind every copy of a book that isn't reviewed is a disappointed author and a frustrated publisher!

Around the weblogs.  The 1709 Blog carries a special offer for its readers -- Edward Elgar Publishing is offering a generous 35% discount to anyone who buys one of its four latest copyright titles before 31 October 2011.  Details of the offer can be found here.  This week's A to Z tour of official African IP websites goes to Cameroon, where there's definitely more going on than in Burkina Faso or Burundi: details here.  IP Watch brings news of an accord between the European Union and India on that most sensitive of topics, the manner and extent to which EU customs authorities can stop the passage of generic pharmaceutical products on their somewhat indirect route from where they're made to where they are intended or supposed to be sold.  Censorship in Australia is the topic of Simone Blakeney's hot-off-the-press post on Art & Artifice. Oh, and IP Draughts has another dose of howlers made when preparing a document for signature. 

Rumours. The Kat has wondered about who might be replacing the recently-elevated pair of Patents Court judges for England and Wales (see here for news of the elevation).  Someone has whispered in his ear that it might be worth putting a few quid on Mr Justice Vos to move over to the Patents Court. He is believed to have something of a science background and was recently given a fairly easy intellectual property dispute to handle in United Airlines Inc v United Airways Limited, noted by this Kat here. The other vacancy may then be filled from within the worthy ranks of the IP bar. Or then again, it may not ...