The European Commission IPR Helpdesk publication ‘Patent v Publishing’ (attached) is worthy of careful study. It contains discussion of the traditional tensions within the ‘to publish or not to publish’ conundrum, knowledge sharing, protection of inventiveness, short explanations of the methods used to transfer ownership of IP rights by way of assignment, licensing, and a short reference to Open Access to ‘the Commons’ – the policy that there should be as wide a dissemination of human knowledge and discovery to all as possible.

Patenting_v _publishing

The European Helpdesk website can be found at:

http://www.iprhelpdesk.eu/

BBC Programme: ‘Gene Patenting’

There is also a programme entitled ‘Gene Patenting’, currently on i-player which includes discussion of the tensions within ‘Patenting v Publishing’ in light of the recent US Supreme Court decision, involving the company known as Myriad and its attempts to patent the BRCA1 and BRCA2 gene sequence. The writer has not read the Myriad decision, but understands that Myriad was unsuccessful in its appeal to patent the particular gene sequence that was the subject of its considerable research. The link to the BBC programme is set out below.

Gene Patenting:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b037vb4d

This call has a deadline date of 26 September 2013.

The European Commission has launched a call for proposals for the provision of support services to assist European Union Small to medium sized enterprises in China. The budget is stated to be 1.2 million Euros (EUR 1 200 000)

The central aim of the call is to provide support services for European Union Small to medium sized enterprises with a view to protecting and enforcing Intellectual Property Rights in work either in, or relating to China. The target audience is both European small to medium sized enterprises in the EU (and those who already have a presence in China) or who are either investing in or doing business with China.

The specific objectives under the Call:

1. Provide EU SMEs with first line advice services

2. Developing and providing state of the art training materials and trainers

3. Report on the latest intellectual property law developments and available support to seek enforcement if possible

4. Provide the contents of a multi-lingual web portal for IPR protection in China, focusing on IPR protection in the business context

5. Monitor selected IPR cases and follow IP policy affecting SMEs

6. Presence at trade fairs and business parternship events

7. Providing basic support for initial contacts with local law enforcement agencies

For those who wish to ignore Napoleon’s masterly late 18th century soundbite (‘Let China sleep, for when she wakes she will shake the world’) full information for making the call to China can be found at:

http://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/portal/page/call_CIP?callIdentifier=73-G-ENT-CIP-13-B-N02C02&specificProgram=EIP

The recent Court of Appeal decision in Fairstar v Adkins, the lead judgment being given by Lord Justice Mummery, rejected the analysis of the first instance Judge (Justice Evans-Stuart) that the emails in the possession and control of an agent (acting in transactions of magnitude on behalf of the principal) cannot be delivered up to the principal (pursuant to the principal/agent relationship); on the basis that that the emails or their content had no proprietary character. The Court of Appeal adopted what they considered to be a more correct approach; namely that delivering up such documents was to be decided on the basis of the agent’s duties to its principal, and not analysing claims about whether emails have proprietary character.

Beginning the discussion asking questions like ‘Is there property in an email?’ or ‘Who owns the content of an email?’ was apparently distinctly unhelpful.

Lord Justice Mummery’s judgment is worth a read. The Court of Appeal decision can be read on bailii at:

http://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/markup.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2013/886.html&query=fairstar+and+heavy+and+transport&method=boolean

Click to access 2014005.pdf

The Government’s new Intellectual Property Bill has had its first reading in the House of Lords on 9 May 2013 – second reading due on 22 May 2013.

Clause 19 in the attached Bill appears to amend section 22 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, which permits a public body withholding publication in certain circumstances.

Clause 19 in the attached Bill will hopefully govern the circumstances for the release of raw data sets, and this will be kept under review as to whether this is the promised amendment to address concerns about the immediate unfettered disclosure of raw data by Higher Education Institutions.