Monday miscellany

All the IPKat's friends are emailing him to tell him that Keisha Buchanan is to commence legal proceedings against the girl group she founded, the Sugababes, seeking to prevent the current line-up using the name. Sadly the report in The Mirror does not give full legal details of her claim, but the Kat suspects it may not be based on the enforcement of any registered trade mark rights. The word SUGABABES has not yet been secured as a Community trade mark, but an application to register it as a CTM was published just three weeks ago, the applicant being Keisha's erstwhile colleague, founder-member Mutya Buena. The IPKat wonders whether, after 12 years in business, the lovely ladies might be prosecuted for a false trade description if they continue to call themselves "Sugababes". Maybe the time has come to rebrand as Sugadames or Sugamatrons? Merpel, her interest in copyright matters having been recently stirred, notices that among the services for which application to register the SUGABABES mark has been made are, in Class 41 "providing digital music [not downloadable] from the Internet" ...


Meanwhile, this month's issue of the Journal of Intellectual Property Law and Practice, just published (details here) leads with an editorial mini-rant about who is to blame when a business rushes headlong into signing an IP-based transaction which turn out to be an invitation to litigate. Other features in this issue are articles by Takashi Miyazawa and Hiroshi Osada ("Quantitative indicators for evaluating the competitiveness of a patent") and Marianne Schaffner ("Two years on: the French experience of the enforcement directive"), as well as two separate analyses of whether the courts in England and Wales have become friendlier or more hostile to patents.


Here's a reminder about the IPKat's Intellectual Property Anthem competition, for which the first prize is complimentary admission to the forthcoming CLT conference on 10 May 2010 on "Ownership and Control of Intellectual Property". Details of the conference can be found here; details of the competition are here. The closing date for entries is 18 April, so you've still got some time ...
Monday miscellany Monday miscellany Reviewed by Jeremy on Monday, March 01, 2010 Rating: 5

2 comments:

  1. I have an IP anthem, although it's a little patent specific and requires some additional explanation by means of:

    The Australian Patent Attorney’s sketch

    Bruce#1: G’day everyone, this is a pomme bloke from mother England who’ll be working with us for a while, first I’d like to wish you a warm, 45 degrees in the shade, welcome to the patent department of the University of Walamaloo.

    Bruce#2: What's your name cobber?

    Brian: Brian

    Bruce#3: What, it's not Bruce?

    Brian: Errr no.

    Bruce#2: Crikey, that's gonna be a bit confusing!

    Bruce#1: Now Brian, let me introduce you to the other members of the department: this is Bruce who deals with prosecution at the Australian Office, this is Bruce who is our PCT bloke, this is Bruce who heads our litigation team and this is Bruce who is responsible for patent formalities....and the sheep dip.

    Bruce#3: So, mate, what’s your speciality?

    Bruce#1: Brian here’ll be in charge of prosecution at the European Patent Office, he specialises in inventions relating to sporting equipment.

    Bruce#2: Fair dinkum, as long as he doesn’t draft any claims to cricket kit, we’ll be apples!

    [Peels of derisive laughter]

    Bruce#3: You’re not a lawyer are yer mate?

    Brian: No.

    Bruce#2: Good, ‘cos it’s not every day a fella wakes up of a morning to find he’s been admitted to the bar and has no more right to live on God’s clean earth than a rabid dingo with halitosis.

    Bruce#1: Now we’re all acquainted, here are the departmental rules:

    Rule 1: Nooooo lawyers!

    Rule 2: No member of the department is to abuse the paralegals........[ pause]........while anyone's watching

    Rule 3: Nooooo lawyers!

    Rule 4: No member of the department is to be caught not drinking during working hours.

    Rule 5: Nooooo lawyers!

    Rule 6: [pause] ……… there is no rule 6

    Rule 7: Nooooo lawyers!

    Bruce#1: That’s the formalities over with, so let’s give our new friend a traditional Walamaloo welcome:

    [Bruces sing IP Anthem to the tune of "Emmanual Kant was a real p*****t, who was very rarely stable"]

    The novelty of my claim tree, is really rather shifty
    A Latin word that’s quite absurd, can also be quite nifty
    A legal maze and techno-haze, obscure until claim fifty
    Unity protects, between subjects, inventive and quite thrifty

    The ruling court, should keep it short, avoiding legal parlance
    But oft dispose, to be verbose, and lead a merry dance
    We’re to the point, don’t disappoint, the broadly claimed expanse
    This blessed state, Australia mate, the rest is purely chance

    The reach-through claim is still our aim, never to amend
    A nice little format but a b****r to defend!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I would have thought that by now they would have put a band contract in place given how many changes they had.

    I think there was talk of the original members reforming as Sugababes, so Mutya's move of filing for a CTM is not that surprising.

    As for the use of "babes".. well the newer members are a bit younger, so maybe it is still correct. Is it some kind of pop version of Logan's Run?

    ReplyDelete

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