Constitutional Catastrophe

30 April 2015, 9 pm

Mr Davies is distraught.  He rings us up to confess that the election has gone wrong, all wrong, and it is The End of the World.  Apparently we miscounted the number of vacancies on Council – there are eight, not seven.  Never has there been such a Constitutional Catastrophe at CIPA, except for that time last year when not enough people turned up to vote for the new membership fees, oh yes and that time on Council when we couldn’t decide who should eat the last biscuit. 

Mr Davies hates people to think that CIPA is not perfect.  He thinks he should throw himself on his sword, only he does not have a sword, only a big walking stick with lights and bells on that he uses as a prop on stage.  So then he says he wants us to give him his P45, and he will sign it with his own guilty blood and he will never forgive himself and blah blah blah.

I tell him to shut up.

Listen, I say, you work with people who live in constant fear of realising they’ve only filed claims 1 to 5 of 15, or missed a deadline because they thought today was April 31^st, or accidentally copied a client email to his competitors with details of his latest infringing activities.  Every single voting CIPA member dreads having to grovel for re-establishment of rights or an extra extension, has nightmares about picking up the phone to PAMIA to say, “You know that insurance I have…?”

So really, I explain, patent attorneys are not going to mind if a ballot goes slightly wrong and we have to start again.  It is still better than what happened in the last General Election, when we all dutifully cast our votes, and then actually got a government cobbled together out of bits of parties that other people voted for.

Spawning fish & recalcitrant laptops

30 April 2015, mid-day

In a huddle in a corner of the Glasgow hotel, I talk to some CIPA members about their business practice and regulatory problems.  Actually what happens is that they tell me what their problems were, and then they tell me how they solved them, and then I ask if CIPA could borrow their ideas please.

In the afternoon I chair the annual Scottish CPD seminar.  I have brought my Cowtrackingclangingthingen with me (I stuffed socks in them when I packed, to avoid traipsing through the airport sounding like Heidi).  They seem to have the desired effect.  The speakers do not go over time and we romp through a range of topics and apart from getting the guest speaker’s name and employer wrong, I think I get away with it. 

One of the talks is on something called the Nagoya Protocol.  This is to do with Biodiversity and not using Biodiverse things without saying thank you to the country you stole them from.  We somehow get talking about fish, because if you are using Biodiversity from fish then which country does the Biodiversity come from and who do you have to thank?  What if the fish were spawned upstream in another country somewhere?  What if they swam across national borders?  Only a roomful of patent attorneys could get into a debate about spawning fish on a Thursday afternoon in Glasgow. 

Mr Lampert then gives a wonderful talk about stakeholder engagement and tries to show us CIPA: The Movie with the watering can and the cartoon trees.  The laptop says No.  Mr Lampert says Oh please but the laptop still says No.  Then Mr Lampert tries to show us a mock-up of the new CIPA website but the laptop says No, not on your nelly.  So then Mr Lampert gets cross and shows us the video through YouTube® anyway and he gets a round of applause for his perseverance and his advanced social media skills. 

And then I stand up and say Look how impressive CIPA is these days.  The delegates do not seem convinced.  So I hand over to Ms Sear, and she makes them convinced alright.  Ms Sear can be quite scary.

A room with a view

29 April 2015, 8 pm

Back in Glasgow, I meet my hotel room.  It is, er, interesting.  It is, er, actually and literally in the concourse of Glasgow Central Station.  There is nothing between me and a hall full of commuters except an ill-fitting sash window and a bit of net curtain.  I can hear all the announcements and watch the trains coming and going, and see who pops into the wine bar on their way home from work and who pops into M&S® for a bit of light jousting with the self-service checkouts.  I can hear that the lady making the announcements is very, very bored.  Catatonically bored.  Her voice sounds like an elephant with adenoids, and it goes on almost without pausing till 11 o’clock at night.

I am also able to verify that the people who drive the motorised trolleys around stations, with their klaxons sounding and an air of urgency about them, do in fact do so completely randomly.  As I’m sure everyone suspected.  They might look as though they are Helping Customers and Delivering Stuff, but at the end of the working day they abandon their klaxon-toting dodgem cars wherever they want and leave, without having helped anyone or delivered anything.  I know this, because I have spent at least an hour monitoring them.  Better than checking emails.

Eating in Scotland

29 April 2015, 10 am

My Meet-the-Biscuits, I mean Meet-the-Members, campaign continues.  I am still having excellent fun.  In fact, I am, in the words of the great politician David Cameron, totally Pumped Up about this campaign.

Today it is Scotland, which means a ridiculously early start to get to EasyJet® Airport on the outskirts of Brizzle in time for a ridiculously cramped flight to Glasgow.  In Glasgow I am treated to shortbread and in Edinburgh, later in the day, extremely chocolate-coated biscuits.  At the Mitchell Library in Glasgow, the people from the PatLib team buy me a slice of ginger cake, although we then start talking about IP triage and the medical allusions do put me off the cake a bit.  Sadly, no-one offers me haggis-flavoured shortcake, as I’d been hoping, but you can’t have it all.

Not that I am obsessed with what people give me to eat, you understand. 

In Edinburgh another deranged CIPA member, clearly overcome by bonhomie and biscuits, offers himself up as a regional representative.  I say You don’t need to decide today; I’ll send you some information, but he says No really, I want to do this, and it is like he is standing on the edge of an ice-cold crocodile-infested lake and would just like to jump in and get it over with as quickly as possible.

Election countdown

28 April 2015, 4 pm

The Election is on.  Voting begins.  I am not talking about the General Election, of course, but about the Specific Election, which is for CIPA Council and the new Pee and VeePee, and it is possible that the new Pee will be me.  Which is scary, whichever way you look at it. 

I log on and cast my votes.  I decide I had probably better vote for myself although I am still not 100% convinced this is the best of the available options.  I am hoping that one or two other people also vote for me, because it doesn’t seem right, somehow, that you can become Pee just by voting for yourself and nobody else having the time and energy to oppose you.

That’s the trouble with democracy: it only works if you’ve got more than one person stupid enough to stand in the firing line.  Perhaps we should make every CIPA Fellow stand for President at least once in their career; the voting would be heaps more fun that way.

IPO biscuits (an apology)

28 April 2015, 3 pm

I am chatting to the IPO on the phone about webinars.  When we have finished the serious stuff, they tell me that one of their colleagues is upset because my blog didn’t mention the biscuits he organised for our last meeting.  I am mortified beyond belief.  It is one thing going round being tactless to senior dignitaries when you are supposed to be gracious and VeePee-like, but you cannot insult people’s choice of biscuits.

So, to make amends:

IPO BISCUITS IPO BISCUITS IPO BISCUITS.  IPO BISCUITS ARE BRILLIANT! GET YOUR BISCUITS AT THE IPO BEST BISCUITS IN LONDON POSSIBLY BEST BISCUITS IN NEWPORT TOO.  ROLL UP ROLL UP GET YOUR FABULOUS IPO BISCUITS!

(Actually, ITMA ate more of the biscuits than I did.)

(Just saying.)

A Magni#fficent Mani#ffesto

23 April 2015

CIPA launches its Magnificent Manifesto and CIPA: The Movie with the cartoon trees.  The watering can spout has gained a rose, to show that it is indeed a watering can spout and not just a peripheral view of somebody getting rid of an evening’s worth of beer.  To be clear: the IP in IPA does not normally stand for Intellectual Property.

Mr Lampert, our Chief Shouty Person, has called the manifesto and the movie “An Economy of Ideas”.  They are quite, quite brilliant.  I am filled with a warm sense of pride, and am almost beginning to look forward to being President at such an exciting time.  There is evidence to suggest that things are now so buoyant at CIPA that even a year of me will not suffice to deflate them.  

 

24 April 2015

Today is #ff Friday and I have learnt that on Twitter® you can #ff someone on a Friday and that this is actually a Nice Thing to do not an insult like you would expect.  I try to think of someone I like well enough to #ff them and who will not misunderstand the gesture and tell me to #ff myself.  After nearly an hour of #ff-ing around on this I have to stop to spend some time with the #ff family.  I guess I have #ff failed as a Twitterer.