INTA: are you going alone?

At MTB, after a couple of drinks everyone
starts to look like this :-)

If you're heading for this year's International Trademark Association in San Francisco and you don't have the security and comfort of the company of your colleagues since you're the sole representative of your firm or office, remember that you're always welcome at the annual Meet the Bloggers (MTB) informal get-together.


This year's MTB takes place on Tuesday 17 May from 8pm till whenever at Swig, 561 Geary Street, San Francisco.  It's free and it's a great place to do some top-class networking too. 

CIPA and/or ITMA proffers a hand?

A piece in the latest CIPA Journal April 2011 caught my eye. It is headed Are you a sole practitioner?
I had been warned that such a piece would appear, but not what it would say. Apparently, the business practice committee were prompted to make the announcement by IPReg.
since I cannot link to the piece, I will reproduce it here so you have an opportunity to comment.

Sometimes it can be a lonely and scary business. How do you organise holiday or sickness cover? Who do you chat to about tricky or unusual cases? Do you struggle to find the information you need about IPReg, indemnity insurance, tax, employment law and other business practice issues? And-an unpleasant but important question-do you have a business continuity planning in case of sudden incapacity?
The Law Society operates a sole practitioners group, which provides representation and supports a solicitor who practice alone. We wondered whether CIPA and ITMA should run something similar. 

However, we recognise that a scheme like this is probably best initiated by sole practitioners themselves, if they perceive a need for it, rather than being imposed by the Institute head offices.
If you're a sole practitioner and you're interested in some form of support network, we like to hear your views. Both seek to end it now will be happy to help sole practitioners to establish their own professional group, and to support the group's activities in whatever ways were felt useful. The institute could for example:

• Set up a directory sole practitioners, and an associated communication network

• Distribute relevant information on request across the network

• If appropriate, help organise mentoring or "buddy" schemes for new starters.

• Help to establish regional networks to which 'on call' holiday or sickness cover could be arranged

• Help to organise meetings at-whether it's cheaper or it might HQ at other venues around the country

• Help administrative backup in preparing publications such as guidance notes are sole practitioners, or even a regular newsletter.

• Assist in establishing resource pooling schemes, for instance the sharing CPD activities of the negotiating discounts from shared suppliers.

• Channel the group's questions direct to the business practice committee and/or to IPReg where appropriate.

This list is almost certainly not exhaustive. The bottom line is, if there is sufficient enthusiasm amongst patent and trademark attorneys sole practitioners, we are keen to do whatever we can to support a special interest group. And some of these ideas might also be relevant, of course, to small practices of say 2 to 10 fee earners. 

If you like the idea of a support network, or have any thoughts about how it might operate, or-even better- you're willing to help set it up, please get in touch with us via your Institute Secretary either Mick Ralph or Keven Bader.

So there you have it. There might be a tiny flaw. As a sole practitioner, there is not a lot of time left over from running the business for running a professional body. This blog with the noble support of the chief @Ipkat is often as much as I can manage. We have negotiated a Westlaw rate that includes the CIPA Black book and the patent and trademark attorneys, for insurance all you need to know about is PAMIA.
Shall we have a meeting to discuss it?

"Patent Attorneys – Let’s save the nation!"

"Patent Attorneys – Let’s save the nation!" -- that's the rousing World IP Day call from Michael Bates (1 Place Patent Attorneys + Solicitors, North Sydney, Australia), who explains as follows:

"As a nation we have everything – we are technologically advanced and we publish peer reviewed papers well above our weight. Who are we? We could be talking about any of the top 15 patent filing nations ... but if we are talking about Australia, we have 

1. enjoyed a relative economic boom whilst most other nations have suffered from the Global Financial Crisis, and yet 

2. slipped most severely as a patent filer per head of population.

Why? We need policy implementation that 

1. address misconceptions about the perceived value of patents; and 

2. involves the patent profession. 

This results in the Australian business community placing relatively little commercial importance on patents. How can we change this? First, there needs to be better policy consideration to improving attitudes to patent protection. Secondly, this policy consideration should take into account the role of patent attorneys. Thirdly, patent attorneys participate in policy formation: have a voice!"

Michael's further thoughts on this theme can be accessed on his own blog, here.

Databases Galore : Patent and Trademark Due Diligence Made Easy

The competition is hotting up between the Patent Offices of the world to produce even better and more accessible databases. Today the UK join with a beta version of  IPSUM a UK patent register that offers access to the documents issued by the Patent Office during the prosecution of recent applications. It also allows easy access to the Espacenet records of citations.

The EPO has also recently updated the EPO Register  and made its alert service (now called Register Alert instead of WebRegMT) much more accessible. The EPO show you the whole file including the correspondence from the agent. Also don't miss the tabs along the top that allow some very sophisticated searches to be carried out directly on the register.


The OHIM have been keeping up too. TMView is celebrating its first anniversary and although not yet comprehensive it is the best way to search for free across multiple country databases. French data is promised soon and we would like see German data so that there is a good prospect of spotting most of the big issues with a prospective new mark in one operation. You won't be able to clear a mark with this alone but you can certainly eliminate some items off a list.

The second OHIM effort is eSearch Plus Beta which combines the ability to search Community Trademarks and Community Registered Designs.  This really is a Beta version and some of the results are not up to date or complete. Representations were missing last week. If you want to see how it should work, here is their nice demo.

See the Origin of the search result. 

 

To complete the novelties we must mention the Global Brands Database which is a SERIOUSLY misleading title because it means Madrid registrations, International Emblems protected by the Paris Convention and Appellations of Origin, which leaves a lot of the globe left out. Moreover its only fair to say that the Emblems are the only thing with anything like global protection.  This tool has some amazing features including the ability to see results shown on a Map. The illustration on the right is for the origin of everything in the database. You could spend all day with this database discovering the most fascinating facts.

Unreliable Evidence: IP law debate

A class of Bears learning about IP

On 30 March the BBC  broadcast a radio programme on Intellectual Property Law in their Unreliable Evidence series hosted by Clive Anderson. You can listen on the iPlayer. A cast of IP experts was in the studio. Michael Fysh, Charlotte May, counsel, Stephen Rowan from the IPO who apparently now rejoices in the title of Deputy Director of the mysterious Copyright and  IP Enforcement Directorate and Paul Stevens from Olswang.

Although the programme was clearly inspired by the Hargreaves Review, the debate singularly failed to highlight potential areas of reform. Indeed during  the section on copyright (16 minutes in) the group seemed placidly to accept that 70 years post mortem was the right term for copyright.  It was left to Michael Fysh to eventually insert a dissenting voice. Clive Anderson - extremely well briefed - made several provocative assertions suggesting there might be copyright in program formats, designer clothing and domain names.

The programme was successful in showing that IP law is diverse and complex. It does not make a good starting point for any business listener but its a worthwhile listen if you are in the business, if only to spot the errors. Perhaps the BBC can commission Clive to produce a series of more educational programmes on the separate areas of IP.

The programme began with a brief introduction piece from Baroness Wilcox. She hit the wrong note for a discussion on whether the law has the balance right,  by drawing attention to a windfall her business had made from an unused trademark  (4 minutes in).

Its great to hear popular radio about legal issues. Keep at it IPO.

The Life of a Regulator

It's all about organisation

The morning's email brought a copy of the recently published Annual Report 2010 from IPReg - the regulator of most patent and trademark attorneys. It is one of the smaller regulators that come under the aegis of the Legal Services Board. 
These smaller professions have proudly boasted that they hardly ever have any complaints and could self regulate very well before this new regime came into force. Therefore it comes as something of a surprise that the report indicates that there have been far more requests for guidance on conduct by attorneys in relation to the activities of others attorneys than from the public. They say:
"We are concerned that we should not to be used as leverage in what may be, essentially, a commercial dispute e.g. over “ownership” of client following.
Whatever the source of the complaint, however, we are obliged to follow the same processes and this is a cost to the profession as a whole."

In short, if you want to keep the fees down, don't come to IPReg to resolve your restrictive covenant problems. Frankly, it is unprofessional for a partnership not to be able to manage its business discreetly when it is necessary for staff and partners to be reduced. Yes the recession is really hitting the IT profession now as decisions to put off maintaining intellectual property can no longer be delayed by our clients. As the EPO office actions become more contentious and the Appeal Board decisions later or arbitrary, it's harder to justify the investment.  Its better for the country if our clients stay in business even if we don't.

Alternative Business Structures (ABS)

The Report also indicates that one of the issues facing IPReg this year is whether it should be an ABS regulator. Personally, I was surprised that the Law Society and the Solicitors Regulation Authority had so much difficulty in deciding that they would regulate ABS. Neil Rose covers the decision very well in his Guardian article. Surely it is now increasingly clear that lawyers are good at practising law but bad at running businesses and that the law like every other business should be professionally managed. In short, it seems to me an ABS is the only legal business a consumer or a business should want to enter into a relationship with. Of course, dealing with a SOLO practitioner or a barrister is the exception because you are buying a personal service. Personally, I hope that IPReg will take the plunge and become an ABS regulator. Otherwise I foresee Patent and Trademark attorneys once more joining the great unregulated and the British Standard won't really help.

IP practice and recruitment: always a good time for musical chairs?

Via PRWeb I've just been reading the always entertaining and well-expressed thoughts of the eponymous Pete Fellows (Fellows and Associates), under the title "UK Intellectual Property Sector Shifts Focus, Says New Review". Pete forecasts "times of change for the private practice Intellectual Property market in the UK". In general terms, the market for recruitment and career moves is looking up, though good candidates for new positions are a bit timid when it comes to contemplating an upward move.

Pete may be right, but I feel that recruitment consultants tend to end up with the same conclusion that there has never been a better time to change jobs, whether the market is booming or contracting. It's just the reasons that keep changing. Thoughts, anyone?