ITMA 322 APRIL 2005

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ITMA business Public Relations Media watch & press releases On 18 October, the government published its proposals for reform of the legal services. The DCA news release gave it the headline “Consumers at the heart of legal reforms” and said the three key proposals would a) set up an Office for Legal Complaints (OLC) independently to investigate complaints; b) set up a Legal Services Board (LSB) to regulate legal services; and c) enable different kinds of lawyers and nonlawyers to work together on equal footing to provide legal and other services. The news was not very widely reported, though the broadsheets carried brief items, as did the specialist press. It was totally ignored by the popular press and I didn’t see anything on TV or hear anything on radio. But talking of radio, the Institute was invited to do a live interview with BBC Radio Leeds on the morning of our attendance at the Leeds Business Advice Day on 9 November. Robert Franks of Franks and Co, who was assisting on the day, agreed to do the interview which followed a local press release we issued covering our attendance at the event. I should mention that Alan Fiddes of Urquhart Dykes and Lord also helped out at the Business Advice Day exhibition. Alan himself had already attracted much media coverage the previous month when he was extensively quoted by the Times on a story covered by the BBC, Guardian and Daily Mirror newspapers about the refusal by the Patent Office to allow Sir Alec Ferguson to register his name as a trade mark for posters. They claimed he was too famous for the name to have any distinctive character and Alan was quoted as saying the ruling was in breach of Sir Alec’s human rights. Chris McLeod, Hammonds, chair of the ITMA Review Committee and a member of the Public Relations Committee, was interviewed by BBC 2’s Working Lunch programme in mid-November. The topic was the ECJ judgment which went against a local Yorkshire producer who had wanted to call her cheese Yorkshire FETA. Chris took the line that it was good that products which are produced in a particular way or in a particular area could be protected and that, in this case, it was right to allow FETA to be a PDO (protected designation of origin) and applicable to Greek cheese. The media also became interested in another case where an application was rejected. This time it concerned the refusal to grant a French company a CTM for the smell of strawberries on the grounds that the olfactory sign was not capable of being represented graphically as the fruit’s smell varied according to variety of strawberry. The BBC, Guardian and FT all reported this story. Another story to excite the press was the decision by GOOGLE to drop the name Gmail in the light of prior claims to the mark from various quarters including a small research company in London, IIIR, and also a German company Giersch who registered Gmail in Germany in 2000. GOOGLE is apparently now offering email addresses @googlemail.com rather than @gmail.com. And finally, as they say, to the Sun newspaper, which ran the story of Digby Milo Jones, of Newburgh, Aberdeenshire who was teased at school and found it difficult to get a girlfriend because of his name. He wrote a book entitled I Hate My Name or How Not To Name Your Baby which offered suitable names for children. He subsequently decided to register ihatemyname.com as a trade mark so that he could follow up his book with t-shirts and other merchandise. He may not have had much luck with the ladies in his youth but he certainly knows how to make the most of his misfortune now. Business Advice Open Days As mentioned above, the Leeds event was held on 9 November. We now have the full programme for 2006, for which I am seeking volunteers for all bar Cumbria in May. The programme is Aintree Racecourse, Liverpool on 16 February 2006; the NEC Birmingham on 21 March; The Stadium, Swansea on 6 April; The Ramada Hotel, Belfast on 26 April; the Rheged Centre, Cumbria on 10 May; The Highland Resort, Aviemore on 18 May; Wembley Conference Centre on 25 May; Cornwall on 26 June; Cheltenham Racecourse on 28 September; and the Marriott Hotel, Peterborough on 10 October. As usual, if you would like to help out at any of these events please contact me at ken.storey@btinternet.com or telephone 020 8941 6079. New membership brochure The PR Committee have now approved a final draft of a new leaflet which is aimed at attracting more members to the Institute. The draft was also viewed by the Membership Committee. The leaflet aims to tell people about the work of ITMA, demonstrate the importance of affiliation and explain how professional body affiliation can give them, their clients and the trade mark industry in general an informed advantage. When published we aim to target those contacts we made when we attended INTA as well as IP solicitors, journalists, business organisations and other groups identified by both committees. Careers We are scheduled to attend the University of London’s Law Fair on Wednesday 18 January between 12 noon and 3.00 pm in the Strand. It would be helpful if I had a newly qualified trade mark attorney to help out, basically explaining the nature of the job and the examination system. It is not a formal presentation, merely standing behind a table handing out our careers leaflets and answering students’ question. If you would like to volunteer please contact me in the usual way. My thanks are due to Duncan Welch of JE Evans- Jackson & Co Ltd who kindly stepped into the breach and spoke to the University’s law students earlier last month (November) in an Alternative to Law Forum. 2 ITMA Review December 2005
This note was written before the event but I am sure Duncan will let us know if it went badly! ITMA website The PR Committee has selected a company called Aardvark Media to redesign and overhaul the Institute’s website. The detailed work is likely to commence in the New Year, but for those wanting to know more about the winning project team they could look at www.squaremeal.co.uk which is a website they designed and which many Londoners will know. ACG Silver Jubilee Autumn Conference 13 October 2005, London The Anti-Counterfeiting Group (ACG) is currently celebrating its Silver Jubilee year. ACG was founded in 1980 by 18 companies which shared concerns about their brands being faked. To give an idea of the historical context, 1980 was the year that Willie Carson won his second Derby on Henbit, West Ham beat Arsenal in the FA Cup final, Nottingham Forest were champions of Europe and England held the Ashes (having won the series 5-1 in Australia the year before). Founder member companies could not possibly have envisaged that the ACG autumn conference in 2005 would have the title “Cybercrime” and that ACG membership and speakers would be drawn from corporate names such as Microsoft, Vodafone and eBay. The opening session of the conference was called “The Big Picture” and focused on security and the changing face of enforcement in relation to IP crime. Leslie Bryant, head of the IPR/Cybercrime unit of the FBI, explained the commitment of the FBI to counterfeiting and gave interesting examples of different approaches that have been taken against counterfeit problems in California and New York. The use of the FBI warning logo on DVD films was of general interest and drew questions from the audience. Ed Gibson, former FBI agent and now Chief Security Advisor of Microsoft UK, spoke about Microsoft’s commitment to ‘trustworthy computing’, which is central to the Microsoft innovation process. A speaker from the National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS) spoke openly about the enforcement issues in a UK political context. He also explained about the formation of the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) which formally begins on 1 April 2006. The single agency will bring together the responsibilities that are currently shared by NCIS and the National Crime Squad (NCS). It will also take over organised crime investigations currently handled by the immigration service and HM Customs. The second session was given over to the specialist investigation services that are required to combat counterfeiting in the internet age. Peter Anaman, from law firm Covington & Burling (although he went out of his way to stress that he is a non-lawyer), talked about identity theft and the concept of ‘phishing’. The examples given shocked many of the audience as they showed how this type of fraud works. He used actual examples of emails and websites that ITMA BUSINESS University Challenge –The Professionals Application forms have now been submitted for the ITMA team of Alan Porteous (captain), Ian Bartlett, Tibor Gold and Catherine Wolfe. CIPA has been invited to enter a team and it will be interesting to see a) whether either team gets through the preliminary selection and b) what happens if we are drawn against each other’s. Some might say that ITMA would win hands down, but I couldn’t possibly comment! Ken Storey, PR Manager, ken.storey@btinternet.com are virtually indistinguishable from the genuine web identity. Many of the individuals in the audience went away from this presentation questioning how they personally use the internet and email and whether their personal data is as safe as it should be. Barry Watters and Rob Trevelyan from the investigation firm Alternative Investigation Management (AIM) talked about investigation practice in the context of tracking sources of counterfeit products that are sold over the internet. Gavin Hyde-Blake from investigation firm Carratu International focused on explaining the importance of experienced investigators and good procedure when dealing with potential evidence in a computerised format. Gavin gave a very clear explanation about how a computer works and how information can be retrieved in some cases even when the files concerned have been deleted, which many of the non-technically minded people amongst the audience found very helpful. The final session was entitled “Brand protection strategies”. Ravi Mohindra, a solicitor with Vodafone Group, opened with a presentation on domain name registration and dispute strategies that showed that Vodafone have a structured approach to the management of their domain name portfolio. The final presentations of the conference were devoted to the trading platform eBay. Jo Grist and Jyrki Nikula of eBay explained the commitment of eBay to protect the IP rights of third parties and the process they operate under their VeRO programme (Verified Rights Owner) where eBay work with right holders to remove infringing items from auction. A “user education tutorial” is a recent addition to the eBay site. Stuart Lockyear and Georgina Jackson of Burberry Limited followed, explaining the scale of the problem Burberry face with counterfeits on eBay. They explained that they continuously work with eBay to remove counterfeit items from sale, and the information contained within eBay listings has resulted in significant seizures at wholesaler/importer level. ACG organised a very interesting and informative conference with excellent speakers who held the attention of the audience to the very end of the last session. The informal environment of an ACG conference provides opportunity for delegates to share experiences and know-how, and to make useful con- Continued on page 4 December 2005 ITMA Review 3
Page 1: Contents ITMA business Public Relat
Page 5 and 6: and the co-ordination of official b
Page 7 and 8: ITMA BUSINESS and Mrs Ramage gave a
Page 9 and 10: Features What’s in a Brand? Brand
Page 11 and 12: Design & Copyright The Costs of Cop
Page 13 and 14: would be off the hook in relation t
Page 15 and 16: Case comments On Your Bikes In the
Page 17 and 18: fully registered if there were an a
Page 19 and 20: Stone Island CASE COMMENTS Sportswe
Page 21 and 22: People Alexander von Mühlendahl re
Page 23 and 24: Proposed publication of tutorial ma

ITMA 322 APRIL 2005

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