The truth revealed

23 October 2014, 8 pm

Recently my blog has been likened to Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal.  This is a trifle worrying.  I think maybe it is time to set the record straight, particularly since I have just been writing about the annual Council pantomime.

To clarify:

1. My blog is emphatically not a proposal.  I will not be putting it before Council nor any of the CIPA Committees.
2. It is therefore unlikely to be adopted as official CIPA policy.  Except perhaps the bits about the Biscuit Pixies.  Which are not, on their own, going to undermine the fabric of the Institute.
3. I have never advocated that patent attorneys should sell their children to be eaten by rich barristers.  I think that would be absolutely and completely unacceptable, especially since many barristers are vegetarians these days.  (For the record, however, I do believe that it is socially irresponsible of patent attorneys to have children in the first place.  Psychiatrists are busy enough as it is.  Possibly these children, if they must exist, should be put to work checking for typos in government documents, although the hours would be long and the rewards few, I fear.)
4. Occasionally I exaggerate or satirise things in my blog.  Or make them up completely.  This is another reason (like you needed another) for not taking it seriously. 
5. Also it has no basis and is unsupported by any known authority or indeed by any genuine evidence or research. 
6. I am unfortunately unable to flag up which bits of the blog are made up and which are not, for artistic reasons.
7. Not that many people read it anyway.
8. I am not modest.  Or genteel or in any other way respectable.

Subject to your acceptance of the above caveats, do please read on.  In fact, I strongly recommend that you do, because as of 1 January 2015, only registered followers of my blog will be eligible to attend CIPA meetings and vote in the Institute elections.  I proposed this to myself yesterday and carried it nem con.

And now I will go back to writing the pantomime script.  It is a new story: VeePee and the Biscuit Pixies.  And not a word of it is true.

Pantomime time!

23 October 2014, 4 pm

Now we are plotting to make the Education Committee more entertaining.  Frankly, all of the committees could do with being a bit more entertaining, but you have to start somewhere. 

Having discussed all manner of bold and heretical changes, which I cannot divulge here because they are SECRET but which may include changing the frequency of the Committee meetings, our conversation strays onto something very different indeed: the annual Council pantomime.  I say “the”, but actually there is no antecedent yet: it is just such a brilliant idea that we are sure the lack of antecedent will not worry even the most pedantic of patent attorneys. 

The Council pantomime will be similar to a Council meeting, but with one or two significant improvements.  For a start there will be custard pie fights, or more precisely caramel custard tart fights.  (I do like a good tart fight.)  Instead of sober suits there will be sequinned leotards, feathers and thigh-high boots.  If anyone asks where Mr Davies has put the Bye-Laws we will all shout “Behind you!!” and if they say something is outrageous we will shout “Oh no it isn’t!”  We have yet to cast the key characters but there is likely to be strong competition for the evil villain and quite a few takers for the principal boy.  Mr Lampert and Mr Davies will be the front and rear ends respectively of the pantomime horse, Mr Davies being the best person to go at the back because he can deal with the plumbing.  And the EyePeePee will be the pantomime tractor, which was not in the original script but he is very pleased we have added it for him and even more pleased that Mr Davies has volunteered to help with the valves.

The dame will be a tough one.  No-one on Council is capable of being coarse enough, not even me, and none of us really has the figure for it.  We may have to call in one of the builders from Chancery Lane instead: there are plenty of them.  Each one appears to have a particular scaffolding coupler to look after, and they have to stare at their scaffolding coupler all day, trying not to get distracted by passing females and taxis and things that make their heads itch under their hard hats.  Since scaffolding couplers do not move very often, unless a major Bad Thing is about to happen, these people must surely have plenty of free time in which to take part in a little light amateur dramatics. 

We should also decide which fairy story to use as the basis for our pantomime.  But it’s not crucial; we don’t usually stick to the agenda so why would we stick to a storyline?

Bad plumbing; great meeting

23 October 2014, 3 pm

At my third meeting of the day, someone finds out that Mr Davies used to be a plumber.  Actually most of us knew this already, although it is not easy to spot just by looking at him; for example he doesn’t carry a pocketful of washers and I have never seen him with a U-bend in his hand.  Also this morning, at home, he broke a whole freezer and a cylinder head gasket, so what kind of plumber is that?

We have already made all the obvious jokes about dealing with cranky old geysers.  But today someone offers a new observation, in which the downstream product of a plumbing system become a metaphor for the output from Council meetings.  This makes everyone in the room laugh.  It is always a good thing if you can turn a serious meeting (which it was) into a bit of a laugh (which it is now), because while people are laughing you can get them to agree to practically anything (which they do).  It is only afterwards that you realise that you also agreed to practically everything.  But you don’t mind because the thought of it sets you off laughing again. 

This is How to do Business, VeePee-style.  I have no idea what I have agreed to on CIPA’s behalf but I have been enjoying myself immensely. 

Induction day plans

23 October 2014, 2 pm

A group of us are plotting to make the student induction day more entertaining.  Last time we noticed that an afternoon nap had slipped onto the agenda following the buffet lunch.  This nap just happened to coincide with my talk on communication skills.  I used to think it was a good talk, until the time someone put in their feedback comments that they “found it difficult to understand”.  This, combined with its obviously soporific qualities, has led me to conclude that the talk must go. 

We are going to replace it with a game of extreme musical chairs and one of pin-the-tail-on-the-charter (pin-the-tail-on-The-Queen was voted out).  Then we are going to split people into smaller groups, so that they cannot hide even if they want to have an afternoon nap, and talk to them VERY LOUDLY about what CIPA and ITMA can do for them.  We have not yet decided which parts of the membership package to discuss, but free beer is sure to feature.

I think all trainees should go to the induction day.  It may be the most exciting IP-related thing that happens to them all year.  Apart from the Informals cocktail parties and pub crawls, obviously, which I notice have been springing up all over the place since our meeting on the pavements of Chancery Lane.  Clearly we pledged them way too much financial support.

But at Informals parties they do not have lectures on professional ethics and client care and complaints handling; or on how to make a profit in this impoverished, cut-throat profession of ours; or on IP being a business tool instead of just something for barristers to write text books about.  So they will not know what to do when their client asks them to patent his competitor’s trade mark on the quiet or complains that they have been insufficiently affectionate, as evidenced by the size of their latest invoice.  And they may not remember to ask him how stealing his competitors’ trade marks fits into his business plan, exactly.

More to the point, I bet they don’t play pin-the-tail-on-the-charter at Informals events.  That alone should be enough to bring students flooding in to CIPA Hall on the 1^st and the 8^th of December.

Exams and stuff

23 October 2014, 11.30 am

I meet with the Chairman of the PEB Governance Board.  We put the world to rights.  This is most satisfying.  (For us.  Probably not for the rest of the world.)

The Chairman used to work in school-level education, so we talk about how things have changed since we were young.  Not that I can remember being young properly but there is evidence to suggest it did happen once.  We talk about whether A-levels and those funny things that replaced O-levels have been dumbed down at all, but I think they can’t have been because these days people are so good they get stars as well as A grades, and in my day we never did well enough to get stars.

We also ponder over how difficult it must be to write a five-hour exam using a blotchy pen and paper when you are used to downloading text just by swiping your finger across a screen.  We decide this might be putting people off joining the patent profession.  I say it is not the only thing putting them off.  But it might be one of them.

The nice Chairman says he would like to gather feedback from the candidates and their trainers, about how well the exams have gone in the PEB’s first year.  I think perhaps he has misunderstood the exams a bit.  They are not there to give customer satisfaction; they are there to cause pain and misery and to separate those who can be strong and British about pain and misery from those who go all soppy.  What is he going to ask people, I wonder?  “How would you rate your examination experience, on a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is orgasmic and 10 is the worst few hours of your life?”  Or perhaps: “Would you recommend these exams to a friend?”  Hmm.  I think not.

A proud moment

23 October 2014, 11 am

This must be the pinnacle of my career!  I am at CIPA, signing letters as VeePee.  Proper letters, on proper CIPA headed notepaper.  With my very own signature.  Which is a bit blotchy because my pen has been on a lot of long train journeys and it wasn’t that good before the train journeys started, in fact I think I nicked it from a conference in 2009 and I would have been better off nicking the boiled sweets.

I remember a time when I would not have been allowed anywhere near the CIPA headed notepaper.  It would have been whisked away for fear of me misusing it in some way – a not unfounded fear, I have to admit.  But today they have no choice.  Today we have to invite a load of important people to come to a meeting about diversity.  So today it is mine, all mine, and I feel very proud and important, and it is all I can do to stop myself asking Mr Lampert to take a photo of me doing the blotchy signatures so that I can show my mum.

Only Mr Lampert is busy.  Reading emails.  Mainly from me.

A blueprint for Council meetings

21 October 2014

I am frantically preparing for the 5 November Council meeting.  Normally I leave Council meetings to other people to get frantic about, but this time there is a risk that the President might be away and therefore that I might actually have to chair the meeting.  Clearly this is terrifying.  I can be scary, sure, but I am no match for 24 grumpy Council members and true.

I decide the best way to prepare is to have all the papers ready well in advance and an agenda that is timed to the last 30 seconds (Mr Davies is working on this; he is good at misdirected optimism).  I have this mad vision of a Council that reads all said papers beforehand so that at the meeting, all it needs to do is cast a final vote on several carefully-drafted proposals.  So my ideal Council meeting would go something like this:

Me (in the Chair da-da-da-DA!): Shut up and listen everyone.

Rest of Council: rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb.

Me: No really, shut up, or I shall start Morris dancing.

[Immediate silence.]

Me: Agenda item 1.

Council member 1: Madame Chairgentlewoman, could we just clarify what-

Me:  No.  Just vote.  It’s not rocket science.  Yes or no?

[Reluctant show of hands.  Mr Davies writes something unintelligible in the minutes, which he will later come to regret.]

Me:  Agenda item 2.

Council member 2: May I just say, with all due respect, that this proposal is complete BALDERDASH.

Me: Yes, Mr Boff, you may.

Council member 2: This proposal is complete BALDERDASH.

Me: With all due respect?

Council member 2: Yes, with all due respect.  But in the circumstances, it appears there is very little respect due.

Me: Fair point.  Now vote.  Yes or no?

[Reluctant show of hands.  Much grumbling.  Mr Davies’s pen runs out.  I take the opportunity to steal another biscuit.]

Me: Agenda item 3.

Council member 3: This item should really have been considered before agenda item 2.

Me: Absolutely.  Never mind.  Yes or no?

Council member 4: I haven’t read the papers on this yet.  What is it about?

Me: Don’t care.  Yes or no?

[Collars begin to steam.  Mr Davies takes the steam as an indication of consent and records a unanimous “yes” vote.]

Me: Agenda item 4.

Council member 5: Ah, this one.  Personally I think we should have a long and convoluted discussion about this and be rude to one another in the process.

Council member 6: And I would like to say something at a complete tangent to the issue under discussion.

Council member 7: And I would like to tell that story again about my first trainee in 1937.

Council member 8: And I am spoiling for a fight.

Rest of Council: Hear, hear!

Me: Overruled!

Council member 9: This is outrageous!  The Vice-President is a ruthless dictator! I propose a vote of no confidence!

Me: Yay!  Vote away.  Yes or no?

Rest of Council: Yes!  Down with the ruthless Vice-President!

Me: Result!

[Pause.]

Council member 10: What happens now?

Council member 11: We must check the Bye-Laws.

Council member 12: Has anyone seen the Bye-Laws?

Council member 13: Mr Davies had them last.

[Everyone looks at Mr Davies.  Mr Davies looks at his shoes.  His pen runs out again.]

Council member 14: But do we mean the current Bye-Laws or the about-to-be-rewritten Bye-Laws with the new improved provisions on getting things done quicker?

Mr Davies: The about-to-be-rewritten Bye-Laws are still with the Under-50s Club being rewritten but not very quickly.

Council member 2: Tosh!  It is all utter tosh!

Council member 15: What is?

Council member 2: Everything is.  Tosh and balderdash and-…  Why is the Vice-President leaving??

Me: Ladies, Gentlemen, I’m off to happy hour.  Anyone coming with me?

[All except Mr Davies scrape back chairs, gather up laptops and leave.]

Mr Davies [weeping]: But what about the OGM…?

You see, it is important to get through all the business quickly, because we have a happy hour scheduled for after the meeting.  And in between the meeting and the happy hour, there is an Ordinary General Meeting to vote in lots of new members.  We have a backlog of bright young students waiting at the front door because we have not held enough OGMs recently to vote them in.  And we have not held enough OGMs recently because, well, to be frank, OGMs are extremely tedious and no one ever wants to come to them.

Anyway, I am blowed if either the Council meeting or the Ordinary Generally Tedious Meeting is going to encroach on happy hour.  So a ruthless dictatorship it will be.