NIPC Law

Just to let you know that I have uploaded the passing off page in the brands tree of WikIP. Just in case you missed it, the revisions to the European Patent Convention agreed at Munich on 29 Nov 2000 came into force yesterday. It's already spawned the Patents Act 2004 . If you want a belly laugh just look at the sort of guff that our wonderful government trumpeted in its press release (see Lord Triesman's press release on the UK-IPO website). Not a word about art 2 of the Protocol on the Interpretation of art 69 EPC you'll notice. They talk about nothing else in Slaithwaite Working Men's Club. A free Granges pork pie by the way, for the first reader not of West Riding residence or provenance to ring me up with the correct pronunciation of Slaithwaite. Clue, a pompous specimen of the y o u n g ba r from the Smoke called Braithwaite got very tetchy when I referred to him as "my learned friend Mr Browit". Not surprising really when you think about the total lack...

Thank you to everyone who has had a kind word for my IP Wiki, especially David Pearce who pointed out that my IP wiki was not the first in the UK. It rather reminds me of "IPKat eats Humble Pie" a couple of years ago when the IPKat team found out that I was not the first barrister to publish an IP Blog. David has referred me to UK Patents for which I am grateful because it is really good. I have changed the name of the wiki from "Intellectual Property" to " WIKIP ". Such an obvious pun. Someone must surely have fenced it off for am IP wiki before now. Actually, someone has registered it as a domain name but for what appears to be an excellent beverage called zrii which is "a blend of pure natural fruits and herbs based on 5,000 years of Ayurvedic health wisdom and Western medical science which work together in a nutritional preservative free form. Apparently the "Zrii taste enlivens the tongue and delivers the potency of amalaki" (see htt...

We were one of the first barristers' chambers with a website , one of the first with a blog, one of the first with a ".eu" TLD (though we have not yet decided how to use it), one of the few with a ".law.pro" domain (though we are probably going to give that up) and the first with a WAP site (which we definitely have given up). Now we are one of the first (if not the first) to launch and support a voluntary public wiki for our area of the law. We could be wrong, but we think we have the first IP law wiki anywhere - at least in the UK Like our other websites and this blog, the wiki will concentrate on advice for SME and creative and innovative individuals. They need specialist legal services just as much as Siemens and Microsoft but can't afford the silly fees that are often charged for such services. Though this has been launched and is supported by nipc it is open to everyone with an interest in IP and technology law and we hope everybody will take part.

No rest for the wicked so they say. One hour after I had shambled back from Sierra Leone I had to dash off to Leeds for a meeting at Leeds Metropolitan University . While I grumbled about it at the time, I am very glad that I made the effort because what I was shown was impressive. The former Friends' Meeting House at Woodhouse Lane has been transformed into The Institute for Enterprise which will be made available to the general public as well as to staff and students of the University. The Institute has all sorts of magnificent facilities: a meeting space in the vestibule conventional class and seminar rooms a soundproof room for confidential discussion a cafe at the entrance. Every room and space has internet access and a screen for presentations. The reason for the invitation was that the University had offered to host the April Leeds Inventors' Club meeting at the Institute. We had a really entertaining talk by Tony Bryant, the University's Professor of Informatics, e...