1 November 2017, 1 pm
The Officers take pity on me and allow me to sit in on their lunch-time discussions. I am supposed to sit quietly in the corner but clearly that is not going to happen and I cannot resist chipping in my two penn’orth. The new Pee begins to look exasperated. Especially when Mr Davies, the Onssek and I go off on a heated discussion about Initial Capitals and Oxford commas. It is good to see the VeePee again. She is still wearing pink and purple with co-ordinating accessories. Even her plastic water bottle is pink. For lunch, she chooses a plateful of bright pink beetroot dip. I suggest to her that we should re-do the CIPA livery for her Presidential year, with the three muses in magenta and a violent violet border to the letterhead. She seems quite taken with the idea.
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1 November 2017, 10 am
Je suis back à CIPA. Il est le Congress Steering Committee meeting. Il est already time pour creating le Congress du next year. Even though we have only just recovered from le one du this year. We have a bit of an idea about the 2018 theme. It is to be about How to Build a Patent Attorney. It will provide all the extra training you need to be a good patent attorney in the 21st Century, bearing in mind the challenges that lie ahead including that none of us has a clue what the world is going to look like by 2019 other than that it will be full of robots but not EU ones. So CIPA Congress 2019 will help create proper, natural patent attorney intelligence to counter the artificial intelligence that is otherwise going to be running the world by the time those claims you drafted in 2017 have been granted. We plan to consult with CIPA members about the types of extra training they regard as useful in this context. This will allow us to blame them if the programme is not up to scratch. Amazing Dwaine is charged with the task of writing up the minutes, from which we can put together a suitable questionnaire. Everyone is hoping that Dwaine will take a long time writing the minutes, so that we do not have to think about the questionnaire for a while. But Dwaine has that look in his eye that says he means business, and I suspect the minutes will be in our inboxes before we have reached our respective homes this evening. After the meeting, I hang around having nothing to do because I am no longer an Officer I am a Nobody and I am not important any more. Luckily, this gives me more time to make cups of coffee and drink Red Bull® and go shopping for lunch. Except that I am not allowed lunch because I need to fit into my posh frock when I go to be OBE-d in two weeks’ time, and after Le Week En France this is going to require desperate dieting measures. The frock was not designed for a poids-lourde. 24 October 2017
Je suis. En France. Having narrowly missed Storm Brian, the family and I are now sitting under Raincloud Claude. Claude est un persistent beggar and has already outstayed sa bienvenue. Alors, je commence à eat du cheese peut-être. Et drink du vin. Toute la journée long. Pour amuser maself. Et maintenant je suis une poids-lourde. 19 October 2017
Apparently it is #InternationalGinandTonicDay. I only find out from Twitter at 7 pm. By which time I have already had a couple of strong gin and tonics anyway, it being #Thursday, which is just before #Friday, which is just before #TheWeekend, which is when everybody should be drinking #GinandTonic anyway. Stop creating hashtags, people, and just get out there and do stuff! You can fit in a lot more gin if you don’t sit there tweeting all evening. And I should know. 18 October 2017
Today I must get to grips with the GDPR, which stands for Godawful new Data Protection Rules. This is a lot harder than getting to grips with Eventbrite®, and unlike Eventbrite it appears not to be about to make my life any easier. But because IP Inclusive keeps lists of people who have agreed to being bombarded by Andrea emails without really knowing what they were letting themselves in for, we are going to have to comply with the GDPR. And it is coming soon to a desktop near you. Under the new rules, we will need to keep detailed lists of the lists we keep, and detailed details of the things we use those lists for. And details of the lists we share with other people. And we will also need written policies about all this, and written privacy notices and consent notices and heavens knows what else, so that before you can sign up to hear more about IP Inclusive, you will need six clear warnings, a signed consent form, verification of your ID and mental stability, a score of at least 75% on a written exam to check your understanding of our terms and conditions, and a four week cooling-off period. All of which will be documented and then added to the list of lists that we keep, prior to your asking us to amend or remove your data or repeat it all back to you under a Right of Access request. For which we must have a Procedure. And guess who is going to have to deal with this additional paperwork? I imagine the key terms of our Godawful new Data Protection Policy will be something like this:
If these do not suffice, then I will just have to hope that CIPA or CITMA have got to grips with the Godawful new Rules and will let me copy their policies instead. This has worked with other rules and regulations in the past, including the CIPA Stapler Refilling Policy, which I wrote for them when I was President and which has gone unchallenged (and indeed quite possibly unread) ever since. 13 October 2017
The Exam Pixies are all for inviting the candidates in early this morning, for a group hug to dispel the glumness, but the Lead Invigilator says that is Against the Exam Rules and instead we must observe the usual deathly hush between reading them their last rites and allowing them to open their tamper-proof party bags. During this time, it is appropriate to remain sombre. Do not misunderstand me; I have nothing against the Exam Rules. It is only right and proper that exams have rules and that everyone sticks to them. It is right that we should have Procedures and Systems, and that everything should be arranged in numerical order and that stuff should be ticked off lists. In fact, this is what makes invigilating such a great job for a failed patent attorney like me, because I like nothing better than to see things ordered, triple-checked and logged according to Proper Procedures. I would urge anyone who is still struggling to pass FD4 to consider giving up and crossing to the Other Side, to enjoy a fulfilling and well-ordered career watching other people struggle to pass it instead. That said, it is a shame that just now and then, the Pixies are not able to break a rule or two and organise a little light Morris dancing or a love-in. Denied this, I turn my attention once again to the WD40, which I apply to the exam clock in the hope that time will thereby pass more quickly. It does not work. Other than that a good number of the candidates finish half an hour early and pack up and leave. They have been doing The One About Foreign Patent Law, and there is much less to write about that now that the UK is Taking Back Control of its Borders and giving even less of a fig about other countries than it used to. At midday my stomach starts to rumble. Loudly. This is almost worse, in terms of its candidate distraction potential, than munching on a crisp and celery sandwich. The Lead Invigilator is about to go Sort Things Out when he realises that the rumbling is nothing to do with recalcitrant grounds staff and everything to do with his rubbish Deputy Invigilator. This time the WD40 is unable to fix the unwanted audio. I stand at the very back of the hall and pretend I have been put in charge of Early Exit Procedures. If Ms Sear rings, I will Early Exit myself. Procedurally, of course. Finally, we reach the end of the last exam, which is The One About UK Patent Law (hurrah!). The Lead Invigilator and I gather in the scripts and parcel them up – in numerical order; that goes without saying – to be shipped to the examiners. We also re-pack the Invigilators’ Goodie Box to return to the PEB. Everything in it has been exceptionally well lubricated and antibacterially cleansed. I am in charge of the parcel tape. I apply it very, very neatly. I enjoy the noise that I am at last allowed to make by tearing the tape off its roll. It is extremely satisfying. Only after everything is neatly taped up do I realise that I now have no way of returning the parcel tape itself. Still, when the Lead Invigilator was not looking, the Exam Pixies did manage to slip a couple of sweets and a smiley face sticker into the box of scripts. I am sure Ms Sear will not mind. 12 October 2017
Today the Exam Pixies put smiley face stickers on the tamper-proof party bags. Still the candidates look glum. The Pixies begin to lose patience. I apply WD40 to three desks, a couple of window frames and all of the ladies’ toilet seats. Also a stapler. They do not need it, but I have to pass the time somehow. Otherwise, the day is about as tedious as you can get. The Lead Invigilator and I fight for jobs to do, even escorting people to the toilets. (We do not escort them all the way in, of course; we just loiter outside looking embarrassed and hoping not to be arrested for stalking. And it has to be said that fighting over the chance to stand outside a toilet door looking embarrassed is pretty sad, even by my standards. But this is how it gets to you if you invigilate for too long.) There are so few jobs to be done, during eight hours’ worth of invigilation, that by the end of the day the fight has become ungentlemanly. If a candidate so much as reaches up to scratch their head, we jump to attention, glare at one another and start purposefully towards the perpetrator. We are ready to leap into action at a moment’s notice, to hand out paper and answer queries and indeed fend off dragons if necessary in the interests of an orderly examination. When a helicopter has the temerity to pass overhead, I can tell the Lead Invigilator is all for heading off to Sort Things Out again. But even he, with his advanced invigilator training, is unlikely to be able to intercept a passing Chinook. I spend a bit of time arranging my provisions. On the desk in front of me: a can of Red Bull (pre-opened, to avoid distracting the candidates); four boiled sweets, of which I am allowing myself one an hour; some non-distracting grapes; two biscuits (non-crunchy) (ie stale); a book of join-the-dot puzzles, for when Ms Sear is not looking; an elastic band to fiddle with; and the remains of the WD40. This is all I have to look forward to. So then I read the exam papers. I discover in the morning that I can still just about draft a patent claim, but in the afternoon that I no longer know anything about trade marks, other than a vague notion that if you try to re-sell branded products across EU borders you are likely to get told off. Not by Ms Sear, obviously: Ms Sear is in charge of telling off invigilators and incompetent printers, and potentially also the drivers of ride-on lawn mowers, but her remit does not extend to parallel imports. By mid-afternoon, I am wishing the Brizzle candidates could be a little less well-behaved. I long for someone to do something dastardly, like steeling a banana off another candidate’s desk for instance, or phoning a friend, or throwing their papers in the air and flouncing out. Nobody does any of these things. I begin to lose all sense of time. I gave in and ate my boiled sweets in the first 55 minutes, even though they tasted of WD40. I have joined all the dots in the puzzle book and the elastic band has exceeded its elastic limit. Which was unfortunate, because it catapulted one of the biscuits into a box of exam scripts. The Red Bull is no longer sufficient to keep my eyelids off my cheekbones. Unfortunately there is no such thing as Invigilator-Strength Red Bull, but there should be. It would have to carry a government health warning. 11 October 2017
The Exam Pixies put sweets on every candidate’s desk, to cheer them up. But they still look glum. The Pixies try not to be offended. There is just no pleasing some folk. I also apply WD40 to another of the exam hall doors. I am getting good at this now. We have the silentest exam hall doors in the whole of CIPA history. They positively glide shut. We kick off with The One About Amending Patent Claims. The examiners have helpfully provided an extra set of the claims in suit, on which candidates can mark their proposed amendments. Even more helpfully, we discover, they have provided these claims in a ready-corrected form. Only the brightest candidates spot this, and of those, the very brightest keep quiet about it. But Ms Sear texts to say we must stop the exam and explain the problem. The problem being that the error in claim 6, which the candidates were supposed to correct, has already been corrected in error, and that this error must be addressed by uncorrecting the error in order that people may recorrect it later but not in error. If they think that is the correct thing to do, of course. She also says – and this bit is much easier to understand – that she is going to knock seven bells out of the printers, who have managed to mess up the mark schemes on two other papers and the claims in this one, and the dates and times of the exams on most of the candidate cover sheets. In the afternoon, the candidates decide to play musical desks before the start of the exam. Clearly they do not like the way the Pixies have arranged the room, and they pick up their tamper-proof party bags and relocate. Some of them want to be near the window, some of them want to be near the front of the hall, and some of them just want to be as far away from the Deputy Invigilator as possible. She smells of WD40. Luckily, there is plenty of space in our Brizzle venue. This is because the exams have been scheduled to coincide with the cider pressing season, and doon ’yur in the Wess Curntry there’ve not been much take-up for exam sittin’ when the alternative be lyin’ with yur edd in a bucket of fizzy apples. 10 October 2017
I begin this morning by applying liberal quantities of WD40® to the hinges of the exam hall door. Now people can visit the toilets without an accompanying squeak of accusation. Next, the Lead Invigilator and I re-arrange the desks. He says it is because some of the desks were positioned under a flickering light and this was distracting the candidates, who as we know are easily distracted. But secretly I suspect he is just bored of the symmetry and looking for something maverick to do. Even a Lead Invigilator is allowed a bit of excitement now and then, especially if he has to be a magistrate in his free time. The desk re-arranging leaves us with a neat square of empty carpet towards the front of the room. We offer this space to the candidates for impromptu entertainments, such as dancing (but not Morris dancing) or tai chi. None of them take us up on the offer. They still look ungratefully glum. Today’s exam is The One About Infringement and Validity. The subject matter is sprinkler systems. Appropriately enough, the venue lays on a fire alarm mid-way through, and we have to stand outside waiting for it to shut up. During this stoppage, the Great Sprinkler System in the Sky toys with the idea of dousing us with genuine Brizzle Drizzle, whilst I glare fiercely at the candidates to make sure they do not use the opportunity to ask one another’s advice on claim construction. The Lead Invigilator meanwhile disappears to find out whether the alarm has been caused by a real fire, an equipment malfunction, somebody’s burnt toast or an ill-timed student hoax. Or perhaps – loathe as I am to consider this possibility – by the over-zealous application of door hinge lubricating means. No sooner are we settled back in the exam hall than a low-pitched rumbling announces the arrival of three ride-on lawn mowers. The grounds staff have decided that now would be a good time to display their synchronised grass cutting skills in the courtyard outside. Once again, the Lead Invigilator is dispatched to Sort Things Out. I am not sure what he does but the noise suddenly stops and later we find three abandoned ride-on mowers in the courtyard. He has obviously received Advanced Invigilator Training from Ms Sear. And also he is a magistrate. 9 October 2017
I rise early. There are traffic jams to sit in. After sitting in them for an hour or so, I finally arrive at the exam centre in Brizzle, where the Lead Invigilator is already drumming his fingers on the table tops waiting for me. He is a magistrate, and although he looks friendly I am taking no chances. I smile sweetly and he hands me a packet of antibacterial surface wipes. Our first task, it seems, is to clean the candidates’ desks. We do not want them to be distracted by dust or coffee stains or desiccated spider carcasses. It is much better to have them intoxicated by antibacterial fumes and glued to their desks with residual solvent. The antibacterial surface wipes come from a box of Invigilators’ Goodies, which the PEB people have very kindly shipped on ahead for us. It is most exciting rummaging in the goodie box. Like Christmas come early. There is Blu-tak® and string, and parcel tape and scissors, and spare black pens for candidates who, though brainy enough to construct a freedom to operate opinion, cannot organise themselves to bring the right implement to record it. There is a clock as well, and a battery. Thanks to the separateness of said clock and said battery, it takes the Lead Invigilator and me some five minutes to get the clock going. This was not covered in our otherwise rigorous training. (Who knew that clocks needed batteries?? I thought time was something that moved on automatically. Except in CIPA Council meetings of course.) There follow several more Highly Important Jobs which only a properly trained PEB invigilator can do, and for which a Deputy Invigilator like me has to be closely supervised. These include: sticking laminated signs outside the exam hall saying “SSHHH! GO AWAY!! EXAMS UNDERGOING PROGRESS!!!”; sticking laminated signs inside the exam hall saying “Dear Candidates, These are the exam rules and if you break them you will be Punished by Ms Sear”; and undoing yet more boxes from the PEB, which turn out to be full of boring stuff like exam papers, and not really Christmassy at all. Then we put out candidate numbers and exam papers on the bacterially-purged desks. The papers are in tamper-proof party bags, so that no one can cheat and take a sneak preview beforehand, thus guaranteeing that the first five minutes of each exam has to be devoted to cutting, tearing, biting or scrabbling your way into the party bag and discarding bits of chewed-up plastic on the floor around your desk. This is a Security Measure. Our next task is to set up laptops for candidates who have been allowed to write their scripts using a Microsoft® Autocorrupt text processing system. The Lead Invigilator tells me it is my job to do this, because I am younger than him. To prove it, he says he can remember back to the days when computers were the size of washing machines. I refrain from replying that when you introduce a memory stick to a Windows® operating system, you might just as well have put it in the washing machine anyway. I boot up the laptops with trepidation, and spend the rest of the day terrified that they are going to embark on a software update midway through an exam. By now, the candidates are gathering at the doors. They look glum. We usher them in. “Surprise!” we say, “Look what the Exam Pixies have brought you!” They still look glum. I think they are an ungrateful crowd. The Lead Invigilator and I have put a lot of effort into making the room nice for them – not to mention antibacterial. Personally I believe candidates should be penalised if they do not properly enter into the spirit of the occasion. We watch them set out their pencil cases and picnics on their desks. Unlike invigilators, examinees are allowed to bring as much crunchy and squelchy and downright unsavoury-looking food as they like. Which seems unfair somehow. We check that they have not smuggled their phones in. We check that they have left their revision notes at the back of the room. We even check that they have not hidden copies of the Black Book behind the toilet cisterns. Then the Lead Invigilator reads out some special instructions about not cheating and not Morris dancing and what to do if you want to leave the room to cry in the corridor for a bit. It is like reading someone their last rites. Only the Lead Invigilator is allowed to do this job, because a Deputy Invigilator like me might add some facetious comments and compromise the gravity of the situation. That would not do at all. And then it is time to start. This morning’s exam is The One About UK Patent Law. I am comforted to see that many of the candidates calculate procedural deadlines by counting off the months on their fingers. I thought I was the only person who did this. I thought everyone else was too clever. |
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