6 January 2016, 3 pm
The first Council meeting of the year gets off to a thumping start with a good half of Council not being there at all. You’d have thought this would make it easier for me to chair the meeting, but actually I prefer a bigger audience because the bigger the audience, the more fun it is being fierce at them. The VeePee is one of the people who is not there at all. He is on holiday again. He has been helpfully sending us photos of the beautiful places he has visited, presumably as evidence that he is actually where he said he would be and not skiving. Today’s meeting is a lot about documents. The first document is the rewritten Bye-laws. It has been checked by a solicitor who is an expert in getting bye-laws and charter amendments past the Privy Council. This solicitor has flagged up that several bits of our draft are too wordy, and several other bits are repetitive, or unnecessary, or incomprehensible, or just plain tedious. He should have seen the original. He has also suggested some crucial changes to the placement of commas. At this point Mr Mercer steps in. Mr Mercer is the Onssek and as everybody knows, part of the Onssek’s job is Responsibility for Commas in CIPA Documents, a role which Mr Mercer discharges with skill, panache and enthusiasm. Nobody knows their commas – or indeed other people’s commas – like Mr Mercer. Frankly, when it comes to the final version, my money’s on the patent attorney. However, I am hoping the Privy Council will care less about commas than about the substantive aspects of the changes. Or is that naïve of me? Meanwhile, not to be outdone, Council sets about annihilating the document for itself. Although we have already considered, quibbled over, amended and approved several previous versions, there is nothing to stop a playful Council member re-opening the debate over proposed clause 23(d)(ii). Does this really say what we intended it to say? Was that really the right thing to intend it to say? Should we add in a clarifying sub-clause with a cross-referenced proviso and a schedule? And some commas? suggests Mr Mercer. The clause about Council’s role also comes in for some stick. People have finally spotted that the clause is full of management bollocks. The bollocks require further definition, or they must go. The word “strategy” is particular bollocks and even with further definition and cross-referenced clarification provisos, nobody wants Council to have any truck with it. However, the bollocks about Council telling the President what to do does not require further definition, as in this context it is better to keep all options open. You never know who you are going to get as President and how much bollocks you are going to have to tell them not to do.
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