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Archive - July 2008
It is time for a holiday I think ...
My old stamping ground of Catalonia – where I spent five very happy years in the late 1980s and early 1990s – is calling. Yes, it’s holiday time and the IAM blog is taking its annual summer break as I head south with my family to a place near Girona for what we all hope will be three weeks or so of intense relaxation (if that is possible). Here’s wishing all our readers a great summer (or winter for those in the southern hemisphere). In one year, this blog has ...
Posted by Joff Wild, IAM Magazine on 29 July 2008 @ 12:00AM
Senior EPO official warns of tougher patentabiliy standards and higher fees
The latest issue of IAM has now gone to press and will be published at the end of this week. There are a number of highlights, but for the cover story this time around I have gone for a piece written by Ciáran McGinley - the Controller of the EPO and so one of the office’s most senior staff members - on the subject of “global patent warming”. In the article, Ciáran goes into some detail about what the phrase means and what is causing it.
Posted by Joff Wild, IAM Magazine on 28 July 2008 @ 12:00AM
UK film and music industries reap lobbying rewards
Are the various copyright industries in Europe the most effective IP groups when it comes to lobbying for its interests? The answer surely has to be yes. Last week, the European Commission announced plans to extend protection on sound recordings to 95 years, now the British government is proclaiming a groundbreaking deal between broadband providers and Britain’s music and film industries. In a three month trial, the six largest internet service providers (ISPs) – who ...
Posted by Sara-Jayne Clover, IAM Magazine on 25 July 2008 @ 12:00AM
There must be money to be made in these wild share price moves
Just to show that share prices do not only go south as the result of patent litigation, Qualcomm’s surged close to 20% in after the bell trading yesterday following the announcement of an agreement that brings to an end the long-running litigation that the company has had with Nokia. And shares in the Finnish company were also up, despite having closed the official trading day down. The deal came on the same day that the San Diego-based company announced third quarter ...
Posted by Joff Wild, IAM Magazine on 24 July 2008 @ 12:00AM
More on the US patent quality debate
The IPBiz blog has been taking a close look at the Ocean Tomo article on US patent quality that I wrote about last week. While not necessarily disagreeing with the authors’ central thesis – that patent quality has gone up at the USPTO over the last five years and not down as the office’s critics suggest – IPBiz has identified what it believes to be a few problems with the article that may, in its words, “distort the true picture”. As far as I have ...
Posted by Joff Wild, IAM Magazine on 24 July 2008 @ 12:00AM
European Commission's copyright extension plans are savaged
Last week the European Commission announced proposals to extend the rights of performers to copyright protection on sound recordings from the current 50 years to 95 years. It was spectacular victory for the music industry, which had been lobbying hard for the change for many years. Now, however, the backlash to the Commission’s proposals has begun. First of all, the UK Intellectual Property Office issued a press release stating its opposition. Now a group of leading European ...
Posted by Joff Wild, IAM Magazine on 22 July 2008 @ 12:00AM
AdWords lives to fight another day as key US case is settled
The controversial issue of keywords and Google’s AdWords programme in the United States will remain a great imponderable for trademark practitioners following the search engine company’s settlement of a case with American Airlines. The airline had instituted proceedings against Google, claiming that AdWords caused customer confusion which “has cost and unless enjoined will continue to cost American Airlines millions of dollars”. Although Google has been ...
Posted by Joff Wild, IAM Magazine on 21 July 2008 @ 12:00AM
Welcome to Brand IP
People working in the IP community would, I think, concede that right now IP has a problem. And it is this. Despite all it has done for the advancement of mankind - culturally, socially, technologically, economically and in health terms – most people outside the IP bubble are almost completely ignorant of what IP is all about. Those who have heard of it tend to be negative to a greater or lesser degree. In boardrooms IP is usually seen as an expensive, defensive right that ...
Posted by Joff Wild, IAM Magazine on 18 July 2008 @ 12:00AM
More mixed messages from the European Commission
The Internal Market DG at the European Commission yesterday issued an official communication entitled “An Industrial Property Rights Strategy for Europe”. It is a wide-ranging document that sets out what the DG says are the Commission’s priorities in a number of IP-related areas. In the press release accompanying the communication, Internal Market Commissioner Charlie McCreevy states: "This strategy will offer a springboard for European companies to compete ...
Posted by Joff Wild, IAM Magazine on 17 July 2008 @ 12:00AM
The WSJ may be spouting patent nonsense, but ask yourself why
The Patent Prospector blog is typically forthright in its condemnation of a recent Wall Street Journal opinion piece entitled “Patent Gridlock Suppresses Innovation”. And while many of us may find the way in which PP expresses itself regretable, it is still possible to have sympathy with the frustration that underlies what the blog’s authors are saying. For what it’s worth, here are my observations on that WSJ piece: • It seems to me that the author ...
Posted by Joff Wild, IAM Magazine on 16 July 2008 @ 12:00AM
