10 June 2016
I am back in London, for another oral proceedings course workshop. Our venue today is the Royal Institute of British Architects. You would think that a building owned by the British Architects would be impeccably appointed and scrupulously maintained. In fact I discover that, although parts of it are grand and beautiful, other parts have been maintained in a style that I can only think is ironic. I speak of the ill-fitting, single-glazed, noise-conducting windows. I speak of the ladies’ loos. The workshops are, as usual, most constructive. Also, as usual, I contribute little other than the odd namby-pamby comment about body language and eye contact. By now the other tutors have sussed that when I attend oral proceedings, I speak confidently and authoritatively but say nothing of relevance to European patent law. (I am available on a consultancy basis, should you want to outsource your EPO opposition work.) The day provides some interesting insights into how EPO examiners work. It appears that as well as classifying patent claims according to technical field, examiners also classify attorneys according to their behaviour. Thus, when you enter a hearing room you can expect to be labelled (although not out loud, obviously) as Mr Aggressive, or Mr Nice, or Mr Incompetent, or Mr Verbose. Or the Little Miss equivalent, for example Little Miss Insignificant. I am thinking I might try this next time I’m at a Council meeting. I am also thinking, however, that I had better not publish the outcomes.
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9 June 2016
Eventually, though, I do have to come home. And I have to take part in a teleconference about the Business Practice Committee. I have not practised business for many months, and I was a bit out of practice before that too. But the thing is, I have lots of Ideas, and it is the turn of the Business Practice Committee to be the lucky recipient of my Ideas. The shock of it has caused them to appoint a whole new Chairman. 1 June 2016
This is the life. I am having a Proper Holiday. Not just a staycation, which isn’t a holiday at all really, because your own house has a way of making you feel guilty the minute you sit down in it. This is a week in sunny Corfu, at a villa with a pool and a view over the sea to Albania and just enough baklava to keep a girl from starving. It is only a small pool: about five swim strokes in length and six cocktails in circumference. But it is a very nice pool for sitting by, and perfect for ignoring emails by. The sound of the crickets chimes beautifully with the slurping of the Redos Bullopolis and the whining of strimmers from neighbouring villas, whose owners seem intent on shaving entire olive groves of their greenery during the otherwise peaceful times of day. I actually manage to read some books – and they are not about IP. The teenage daughter is happy because her boyfriend is with her. The twelve-year-old son is happy because the teenage daughter is not bothering him. The husband is happy because I am pleasantly, drunkenly inarticulate for large parts of the day, and asleep in the sun for the rest. What’s not to like? I miss a Council meeting, an Internal Governance Committee meeting and at least two meetings about regulation. I miss a discussion about CIPA’s Social Media Policy, which is essentially going to be a Stop Andrea Publishing Policy. I miss a lot of plans and decisions and I am unavailable to comment on a lot of documents. The boats bob on the water; the sunlight bobs with them. The teenage daughter and boyfriend choose tacky souvenirs, then tacky cocktails, and we drink to the sun-bobbing tackiness of both souvenirs and cocktails and eat feta cheese in twenty different forms and filo pastry till we’re sick of it. I do not want to come home. Ever. 26 May 2016
One of my anti-fans refers to me as CIPA’s Court Jester. Actually, I rather like that. The Not-so-Secret Diary of a Court Jester has a certain ring to it. I will make sure that when I attend Council and committee meetings, Mr Davies records my name as Feste. 27 May 2016 In recent days I have been struck by a couple of pieces of IP-related news. This may be because I now have time to read the IP-related news rather than consigning it to one of a series of carefully organised Gmail folders and hoping someone else will read it for me. The first bit of news is about Monsieur Le President Battistelli’s bicyclette, which someone has tampered avec. It is a serious thing, to come between a Frenchman and his bicyclette. It is only one step away from a revolution. You would have to be seriously upset about what’s going on inside the EPO, to commit the outrage of taking a spanner and some wire cutters to a bicyclette. Pour faire du Sabotage. Then I remember that actually, yes, people are quite upset about what’s going on inside the EPO. I worry that Monsieur Le President may not now be able to get home. And I am thinking: if people inside the EPO dislike him enough pour faire sabotager sa bicyclette, perhaps they should have thought this through a little more carefully, because if he’s not able to get home, he will be around the office more. The second piece of IP-related news is to do with “hot-tubbing”. I am actually not interested in the news itself, so much as the realisation – which had previously escaped me – that such a thing takes place in the UK courts. Apparently hot-tubbing means getting all your expert witnesses to testify together. And if the judge so orders, in the interests of decency, everyone has to wear swimming costumes and shower caps and the Clerk to the Court has to supply adequate numbers of bubbles to cover the parts which, though expert, are not attractive. I am not comfortable with the images this brings to mind. Expert witnesses are not often the type of people you would want to see in your hot tub. The idea of watching them interact with one another in a bathroom scenario, and from this deriving the outcome to a legal battle, seems particularly undignified. I would rather our courts had taken measures to stamp it out forthwith. Instead, apparently, they are going to conduct a survey of legal representatives who have been involved in hot-tubbing (they will need to phrase their questions carefully), with a view to encouraging more of it. What is the world coming to?? 23 May 2016
The new Officers (that’s the new Pee, the new VeePee and the Old-Pee-Who-Hasn’t-Yet-Managed-to-Escape) meet with the CIPA staff. We all introduce ourselves and what we do. For some of us, the “what we do” bit isn’t long at all. For the CIPA staff, however, the “what we do” is long and arduous and has been largely my fault for the last 24 months. So, whilst they are happy to get to know the new VeePee, who is extremely smiley, they already know me plenty well enough, thank you, and have no desire to extend the acquaintance. Mr Davies, in his usual poetic way, describes the constant changing of the CIPA President as a little like Groundhog Day. Well, actually, a lot like Groundhog Day. Every year, he says, he wakes up and has to start all over again. Every year the new Pee says, No, no, from now on we are going to do things this way! Every year there are new priorities, often before you’d finished understanding the old ones. He summarises the previous presidencies in roughly this manner: a hundred years or so of stability; a couple of years of strong, useful organisational change; and then a whirlwind year of utter chaos, during which changes rained down like demented space invaders and nobody knew whether they were coming or going. This year of utter chaos just happened to coincide with my presidency. I refrain from saying that I’d have done even more if I hadn’t had all those complaints to deal with. I suspect that would be over-simplifying. I also refrain from pointing out that several people have since referred to my presidency as “inspirational”. Because I am beginning to see that what they meant was that it caused many a sharp intake of breath. There are quite a few CIPA folk who are now looking forward to being able to breathe out again. Perhaps Mr Rollins’s presidency will be referred to as expirational, or might that have undesirable connotations? 17 May 2016
Now that I have had some time to relax, and to bake a cake (albeit a militant feminist cake), I can reflect on this whole mad being-CIPA-President thing. Clearly, it has not been a picnic. It has not brought unmitigated joy to my life. At times it has been exasperating, demoralising, even terrifying – and doubtless the same for the people who had to work with me. I have found it exhausting, partly because of the travelling, partly because my body picked this year to fall to pieces, but partly also because I am a wimp. And I have got a lot wrong. And people have not been backward about telling me so. But it has also been amazing, uplifting, exhilarating. It has made me laugh. It has made me dress up in my posh frock. And as I said at the AGM – in a rare moment of lucidity between messing up the agenda and handing over the Presidency – it has, above all, been a privilege. How often do you get the opportunity to turn a whole Institute namby-pamby? How many of us get entrusted with maintaining the pace of change in an organisation that’s only just got used to the solar-powered calculator? How many get to try out ruthless dictatorship for free, in a place where it doesn’t really matter because no one takes any notice of them anyway? How else would someone like me get to work with such amazing people, like the EyePeePee, who is basically Superwoman; and the VeePee who knows so much and so many people and unlike me, doesn’t forget it all when he goes on holiday; and mad Mr Davies with his hundred-mile-an-hour ideas; and all the other CIPA people from whom I have learnt so much this year, like restraint and tact and what UPC stands for. Knowing what I know now, would I do it all again? Ask me in a couple of months’ time. And make sure I’ve had a double gin and tonic first. 13 May 2016, 4 pm
Since the headache has passed, I feel more inclined to celebrate today. I must start preparing for World Gin Day, which is in just under a month’s time, on 11 June. There are also – according to a charming little website I have found which is absolutely not taking the mickey at all – a number of other World Days to look forward to, for example Rocky Road Day (2 June), Bourbon Day (14 June), Fudge Day (16 June), Apple Strudel Day (17 June) and Chocolate Éclair Day (22 June). Who writes this stuff?? I also quite like the sound of “Please take my children to work” Day (27 June). Only, I am not sure how many children I have left now. I know one of them is doing an oak-panelled degree, and the twelve-year-old goes to a school which gets cross if you wear your PE kit in maths lessons. But I think I may have mislaid the others. World Environment Day sneaks in on 5 June, but who’s going to take notice of that? World Obesity Awareness Day has been postponed while they fit in all the other more urgent days, like World Deep Fried Products Day and World Double Chocolate Doughnut Day. And if I can find out how to do it, I will personally instigate a new one: World Over-worked Presidents’ Day. On which I will be sure to send a supportive email to the new CIPA Pee, with a couple of restful-looking holiday snaps attached. 13 May 2016, 8.30 am
I decide, as part of the winding-down and not-checking-emails therapy, that I will Bake a Cake. Obviously it will be a macho, militant cake, but the important thing is that it will be available to eat afterwards. Or at least, that is the intention: I do not bake cakes for the joy of baking after all. Today’s cake is a prune and alcohol feminist cake with extra alcohol, no joy and an almond and fingernail streusel topping. It very nearly doesn’t happen at all after I read that my 50g of almonds must be “very finely shredded”. Shredded? Almonds? Very finely?!!? Is that not like asking me to roughly dice a paving slab, or grate 500g of sheet metal? If the almonds need cutting in half lengthways and finely shredding, might I venture to suggest they are the wrong ingredient for the job? The cake has just become 50% more militant. After I have added the myrrh-infused, thrice sun-dried prunes (with the wrinkly bits smoothed out), and pipetted in the deionised water and the micronised caster sugar, I put the whole thing in the oven at the temperature it says in the book minus a fudge factor. For the record – and in case you were hoping to follow this recipe for yourself – the fudge factor is in Kelvin. Then I remember – rats! – that I am supposed to do the washing up while the cake cooks. The militancy of both the cake and the kitchen after-care increase by another 50%. This puts them, technically, off the scale. |
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