There's something new-ish on the IPKat's sidebar: a blogroll of weblogs
which are in some way or other connected with the IPKat or its various
authors. To his slight alarm, the Kat notes that this feature, which
comes as a standard Blogger gadget, has its own rather idiosyncratic
approach towards updating itself -- so he's watching to see if, like
much of the things that go wrong on the blogosphere, either (i) it
cures itself or (ii) a kindly reader tells the IPKat how to cure it.

The IPKat need hardly remind his regular readers of the multitudinous
meetings listed in the Forthcoming Events feature of his sidebar.
However, the 3,700+ readers who get their IPKat by email may just need
the occasional reminder to visit the blog itself (many readers have not
noticed the colour-change and general smartening up, it seems) ...

The IPKat thanks his respected and venerable friend Dirk Visser for
information concerning a forthcoming reference to the European Court of
Justice of a couple of questions emanating from the Brussels Court of
Appeal and which concern the SatCab Directive. To save your headaches
the Kat has kindly located the detailed bits on The 1709 Blog, where
they can be lovingly savoured by copyright specialists and skipped over
by ordinary mortals. You can read the gory details here.

If you're in blog-hopping mood right now and feel strongly about the
absurdity of the inability of European customs authorities to seize and
detain counterfeit products in transit as they cross the territory of
the European Economic Area, you should take a look at the jiplp blog,
which has very recently given some air to a powerful yet well-reasoned
polemic by two Howrey lawyers, Willem Hoyng and Frank Eijsvogels, on
the need to maintain the fiction that fake goods crossing the EEA were
actually made there. This piece, posted now so that interested parties
can read it before the Court of Appeal, England and Wales, hears
Nokia's appeal in the controversial decision of Nokia v HMCR (see here
for IPKat note on the trial decision) can be accessed here.

Paul Jurcys has emailed the IPKat with news of the New Draft of the
Transparency Proposal on Jurisdiction, Choice of Law and Recognition
and Enforcement of Foreign Judgments in Intellectual Property, which
has just been made available online. This project, initiated in 2004
and funded by Japan's Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science
and Technology (MEXT), aims to make Japanese law more accessible to
legal community around the globe by translating statutes and court
decisions into English [Hooray, says the IPKat]. 11 research groups
comprising 45 scholars are currently dealing with various areas of
commercial law, including IP. Ultimately the Proposal will facilitate
deliberation as to how the international jurisdiction of Japanese
courts should be constituted in order to manage cross-border IP
litigation effectively. Also, regarding choice of law rules for
cross-border exploitation of IP rights, the Proposal will invite law
makers to include specific choice of law provisions for IP.

ECTA, the European Communities Trade Mark Association, has smartened up
its website. If you fancy taking a peep, it's here. ECTA is of course
not to be confused with MARQUES (which used to be termed 'the
Association of European Trade Mark Owners), which has been gradually
implementing its own ongoing website smartening-up exercise here.

It might have the most boring of names, but never tangle with General
Patent Corporation, says the IPKat. According to its recent news
release, GPC negotiated a successful outcome on behalf of its client
Common Ground Seminars in a service mark infringement claim against
Trump University, New York City. Without any sense of humour or irony,
GPC reports that the mark in question -- almost certainly unregistrable
in Europe in respect of conflict resolution workshops -- consisted of
the words NEGOTIATE TO WIN.

The IPKat reckons that Graeme Gilfillan must be feeling fairly pleased
with the result of SAMRO v Gilfillan -- an attempt by the South African
Music Rights Organisation Ltd to gag him from from making further
criticisms of its operations, which they regarded as defamatory or
injurious. Graeme has been campaigning against perceived failures of
the organisation to pay sums owed or to provide adequate accounts in
respect of royalties earned on the works of dead members. The IPKat
likes collecting societies because they do things that individual
rights owners can't -- but his favourite ones are the most transparent
ones, and no collecting society has ever died of greater transparency.
You can get the judgment and some links to the background from Afro-IP
here.

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Posted By Jeremy to The IPKat - IP pleasure, without the pain! on
11/06/2009 12:01:00 PM