ipwars.com

IPRIA and CMCL at Melbourne Uni. are holding a half-day forum on 18 March on:

• iiNet
• Larrikin (Down Under)
• Telstra v PDC

Speakers are:

Prof. Ann Monotti and other experts will be talking about what University of Western Australia v Gray means for Universities in

1. Melbourne on 17 November
2. Brisbane on 23 November; and
3. Perth on 20 November.

Details and registration here.

Judge Hiroki Morishita will be providing an Introduction to the High Court of Intellectual Property in Japan on 9 November in Melbourne. Details and registration here.

And, if you’ve recovered from Oaks Day, you could find out what difference a patent makes in Melbourne on 6 November.

IPRIA has organised a seminar in Melbourne on 15 September and Sydney on 16 September to discuss whether freeing parallel imports will make books cheaper.

Speakers include both Prof. Fels, who started it all, and Dr Rhonda Smith.

Details from here.

Has anyone established how far the prices of CDs and computer software fell once the markets for those products became open?

IPRIA (Ass. Prof. Beth Webster and Kimberlee Weatherall) is holding a lunch time seminar reporting on the results of their survey of patent infringement in Australia:

• in Melbourne on 9 June 2009; and
• in Brisbane on 10 June,

at the Blake Dawson offices in those cities.

According to the blurb:

One of the great unknowns of patent policy is how much infringement actually goes on, and how much of that infringement leads to enforcement of an informal or formal kind. IPRIA recently conducted a representative survey of over 3700 Australian inventors in order to estimate the prevalence of (alleged) infringement and what formal and informal steps were taken to stop the copying activities. We present these findings along with a discussion of what can be done to improve the efficacy of patent enforcement in Australia.

The seminar is free of charge.

More information and links to the registration pages for each event here.

Bit late on this one – IPRIA and MBS seminar on 24 April 2009, starting at 9.30.

Details here (pdf).

The Government has published Frontier Economics’ review of the ambush marketing legislation provided by the Olympic Insignia Protection Act 1987 (Cth) and the Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth Games (Indicia and Images) Protection Act 2005 (Cth) (the AML).

According to the Executive Summary, key points include:

• The Review is of the opinion that the AML has provided tangible benefits to the organisers, and that these have a direct (although difficult to quantify) bearing on their ability to raise revenue from licensing. 
• The AML appears to have provided greater clarity regarding the existence and scope of the organisers’ entitlements.
• There doesn’t appear to have been many, if any, ‘blatant’ examples of ambush marketing  for some time.
• Concerns were identified, particularly in the Olympic Insignia Protection Act, with the definition of ‘commercial purposes’ and the requirement to show that an accused use would be seen by a reasonable person as suggesting sponsorship like support.

While the review found the legislation largely working as intended, it did not some qualifications:

(1) whether apparent reductions in ambush marketing are due to factors outside the AML;

(2) whether NSOs and other peak bodies have been unduly hampered in their ability to attract their own sponsorships; and

(3) whether sufficient income generated from the rights granted under the AML has been returned to sport. 

Read the report here (pdf).