20 January 2016, 9 am
My train is going very slowly, so that its passengers can enjoy the view. Whether they like it or not. I have to say, it looks fabulous outside as the landscape wakes up, far better than it does inside as the passengers wake up. There are frosty fields and there is misty salmon-pink sunlight and really the only downside is that we wanted to get to London not go on safari. People exchange thoughts about how late they’re going to be and the alternative travel plans they’ll have to make. Then they Touch Base with their Stakeholders. If there’s one thing guaranteed to increase your stress levels it’s the sound of people huffing angrily into their phones about being important and influential but essentially not there on time. My first CIPA meeting is with a lovely man from Queen Mary College, about the EPLC course he and his colleagues are hoping to build. The lovely man is a professor already. Professors look so young these days. It is not easy building an EPLC course. You have to get it accredited, and to do this you have to apply to an accrediting authority that does not yet exist, and prove to them that your course includes all manner of useful content for instance about EU law, different infringement provisions across continental Europe, what the CJEU is there for and the related issue of why SPCs are so difficult. Your course has to include 120 hours of teaching, some of which can be done remotely but all of which must require the students to have their eyes open. There must be a written exam and an oral exam, and an induction ceremony that involves Jaegerbombs and underpants although not a pig’s head. OK, so I made that last bit up. Anyway, because it is not easy building an EPLC course, we are hoping that we can help Queen Mary build theirs rather than have to do one of our own. This makes perfect sense to us. At the beginning of the meeting, it makes perfect sense to the lovely man from Queen Mary too. But then the patent attorneys start debating the finer points of the UPC rules of procedure, and the lovely man starts to look doubtful. Once again, we are demonstrating our profession’s unique ability to get straight to the nitty-gritty details, and in the process forget what it was we were supposed to be deciding.
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