Monday Miscellany

It’s a Monday, it’s 2020, and of course the events and opportunities keep on coming! Here are all of the latest for you to put in your diaries.

EUIPO IP Case Law Conference 2020
Following the resounding success of the previous two colloquiums in 2016 and 2018, the EUIPO Boards of Appeal, together with EUIPO’s International Cooperation and Legal Affairs Department and the EUIPO Academy, will host the 3rd IP Case Law Conference on 21 and 22 May 2020 in Alicante. Covering substantive and procedural issues of trade mark and design dispute resolution, the conference will draw on a wide range of intellectual property law expertise for the two day forum of debate and discussion. Further details here.

AIPPI UK: The Cofemel decision – What has the CJEU done now?

AIPPI UK is delighted to announce that the Director of the Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Law at the University of Cambridge, Professor Lionel Bently, will be speaking on the Cofemel decision, concerning the designs of t-shirts and jeans sold by G-Star Raw. The event will be held on 23 January 2020 from 6pm to 8pm at Bristows LLP, 100 Victoria Embankment, EC4Y 0DH, London. To sign up, click here.

The University of Geneva will be holding a conference looking into the recent developments in the era of big data and blockchain, and the present and future challenges of intellectual property law form an international, European and Swiss perspective. The all-day session will be held on 5 February 2020 in Room MR080, University of Geneva, Bd du Pont d’Arve, 1211 Genève 4. You can register and find further details here.

Fashion, Law and Business is hosting a Winter Fashion Law Masterclass on 20 February 2020 from  10am to 4pm at the Condé Nast College of Fashion & Design, 16-17 Greek Street, Soho, W1D 4DR, London. Designed to help participants understand the law as it applies to the business of fashion, this one-day event will offer a practical understanding of the law of intellectual property and will explore the essential legal issues faced by a fashion business as it grows from a start-up to a luxury fashion phase. You can register here and find further information here.

In its Annual Spring Conference (chaired by Lord Justice Richard Arnold), the Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Law’s conference will bring together practitioners, scholars and policymakers to examine the latest decisions, research and political developments in the field of intellectual property and health. The event will be held on 7 March 2020 from 9:30am to 5:50pm, at the Faculty of Law, 10 West Road, Cambridge, CB3 9DZ. Topics will include, amongst others: the implications of non-obviousness for follow-on medical innovation (e.g. drug repurposing) after the UK Supreme Court’s 2019 decision in Actavis v ICOS; the current and future roles of competition law in controlling drug prices, including an update on Flynn and Pfizer; and the potential effect of Brexit on the trade of medical products. You can sign up here, find further information here, and the conference programme here.

CIPIL 15th Annual Intellectual Property Lecture
Professor Arti K. Rai (Elvin R. Larry Professor of Law, Duke Law School) will deliver the fifteenth annual intellectual property lecture on 10 March 2020 at 5:30pm at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. Further details will be uploaded here when they are available.

UCL Institute of Brand and Innovation Law (IBIL) and MARQUES, the European Association of Trade Mark Owners, invite you to meet and question some of the judges that are or were until recently deciding our trade mark disputes. The Rt Hon Sir Robin Jacob will be posing questions to: Emma Himsworth QC (Appointed Person), Judge Ian Forrester (General Court, Court of Justice of the European Union), and The Rt Hon Lord Justice Arnold. The event will be held on 11 March 2020 from 6pm to 8:30pm at UCL Faculty of Laws, Bentham House, Endsleigh Gardens, WC1H 0EG, London, and you can find further details here.

UCL IBIL – IP Transactions: Law and Practice
In addition to understanding relevant provisions of IP law, IP practitioners need to be familiar with a wide range of commercial law subjects, including personal property, contracts, competition, insolvency, and employment. Each day of UCL IBIL’s 5 day course focuses on a different market or practice area, provides instruction on legal and commercial topics relevant to IP transactions in that area, and gives an introduction to the IP agreements in the media and consumer goods sectors. The course will be held from 20-24 April 2020, with deadline for applications on 31 January 2020. More details can be found here.

As an avid follower of the 1709 Copyright Blog, this InternKat was sad to find out that this blog would not be joining us in 2020. The blog – founded 300 years after the Statute of Anne created the first purpose-built statute law in 1709 (or was it 1710?) – has been posting fascinating copyright articles and insights for the past 10 years. We wish the team all of the best in the future and thank them for their contributions to the IP blogosphere! You can find the 1709 Blog’s last post, an in-depth and comprehensive recap of the copyright highlights of 2019, here.