3 February 2016, 5.30 pm
OK, so now I am exhausted too. Despite my best intentions and my bestest fierceness, we have only just finished the Council meeting. Initially, people were well behaved and they put their hands up when they wanted to ask questions. After a while they stopped putting their hands up and just asked questions anyway. And then they started talking to one another about their own questions while other people were discussing some other questions. So I had to tell them to BE QUIET and it all got a bit Dad’s Army. I had to be particularly fierce to prevent the level of detail becoming incapacitating. For example, at one point Mr Davies was explaining his Cunning Plan for when the landlord starts to talk about Deelapidayshuns and market rates and such like. He invited everyone to a special IGC-and-Council meeting next month, with lunch, to talk about what CIPA needs from its premises. And instead of saying, yes, we will come to the meeting, thank you for offering lunch, people immediately wanted to know the price we are paying per square foot at 95 Chancery Lane and the price we might have to pay if we moved to place X and how much further our members might have to walk to get to place X when they are used to going to Chancery Lane. There was, indeed, some concern about moving CIPA anywhere other than slap bang next door to the attorneys who have always worked slap bang next door to CIPA. Because these people are allergic to public transport. And I said: it doesn’t matter right at this moment what price we are paying per square foot because we can talk about all that at the special meeting with lunch next month. So shut up. They got their own back by picking holes in the Bye-laws, which were supposed to be ready to send to the Privy Council but in which people have suddenly spotted fatal flaws. The Bye-laws have now been amended and re-drafted so many times we have lost track of what I believe is called, in polite circles, “version control”. Doing version control at CIPA is like doing portion control at an American fast food outlet, with everyone assuming a sort-of “all you can eat” format. They wanted to re-draft the offending clause right there and then, in 12 different ways with 13 different types of punctuation. I said no, that is not going to happen; instead Mr Davies is going to re-draft it and send it for approval, which you are going to give because Mr Davies is the most legally-literate plumber we could find and let’s face it he is our only chance of getting anything to the Privy Council before 2020. Mr Davies gave me a very black look, which suggested he did not feel particularly honoured to have been given this task. I gave him a very black look back, which suggested that honour did not come into it. I am beginning to wish I had insisted we played the Don’t Stop Talking game, like at WIPO. With me doing the not stopping talking and Mr Davies doing the not stopping writing and nobody, but nobody, doing the not stopping nitpicking about details.
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3 February 2016, 2.30 pm
At today’s Council meeting we have laid on some sport. We have invited the Hon Sec of the Informals, aka Little CIPA, to talk to us about a proposal that the Informals and the IPO cooked up together. There is an expectant silence as he prepares to speak, which only the bravest of souls could interpret as welcoming. He looks remarkably composed, considering. The proposal is about trainee examiners from the IPO visiting firms of patent attorneys to find out what they do for a living and why it is they all sound so grumpy when they write letters. Fortunately, everyone supports this proposal. After all, it does not come from the President. Unfortunately, supporting the proposal only takes thirty seconds; after that there are thirty minutes of details to sort. What time will the trainee examiners arrive? Will there be presentations and if so, who will write them? And what will they have for lunch? The Hon Sec of Little CIPA tries to look happy that people are taking such an in-depth interest in his proposal, but by 3 pm he just looks, frankly, exhausted. I tell him he is free to go. I have rarely seen anyone put a coat on so quickly. We watch him exit, in silence, because we cannot start talking again until he’s left, in case he finds out anything SECRET about how Big CIPA is run. 3 February 2016, 2 pm
At the Congress Steering Committee meeting this morning, we made Cunning Plans about the date and venue and timings and content for this year’s Congress. In fact, we pretty much got it all sewn up. Unfortunately the date is slap bang in the middle of the Oktoberfest, which means that certain people will be unable to come to Congress unless we pick them up bodily from a beer tent the night before, shove them on an overnight shuttle bus to London and fly them straight back to the tent with a fistful of paracetamol once the CPD bit’s over. Personally I think that could be made into a selling point for the event. We then held an Internal Governance Committee meeting, at which Mr Davies revealed his Cunning Plan for where CIPA is to live when the lease on 95 Chancery Lane expires and the landlord attempts to renegotiate the rent at current market rates. The current market rate for dowdy, red-walled office space on Chancery Lane, with integral damp patches and carpet stains, is apparently nearly double what it was when we moved in. Mr Davies’s Cunning Plan involves moving to somewhere else where we would be (a) more welcome and (b) less fleeced, and where we could have proper usable office space rather than paying £exorbitant per square foot for a badly-carpeted corridor facility. The biggest problem with this Cunning Plan is how we would move the CIPA crest and the massive list of past presidents, which appear to be structurally embedded in the walls of CIPA Hall like fossils. If we attempt to remove them, we might well take large chunks of the Hall with us, which would leave the landlord with a badly-carpeted corridor leading to a dowdy, red-walled abyss. And then, says Mr Davies, our Deelapidayshuns would be very high indeed. I left the IGC meeting to go for coffee with a couple of fellow Council members. This does not involve any Cunning Plans at all, other than the one about how a small person in a smart skirt can reach the summit of a coffee shop bar stool without an undignified tearing sound announcing the loss of yet another hemline and the reappearance of leg parts that have been rightly hidden from view since 2010. 3 February 2016, 9 am
I endure what feels like a three-hour taxi ride from the flat to CIPA HQ. The taxi driver asks me what I think about the EU referendum. I am aware I need to be careful how I answer this. I am also aware that spouting the official CIPA position will not necessarily satisfy him, and that explaining how much Mr Davies dislikes the word “Brexit” will not get us any closer to agreement. And finally, I am aware that whatever my actual views on the EU, only one of us is able to get me and my suitcase to Chancery Lane on time and therefore the balance of power favours a certain amount of diplomacy. As it happens, however, I do not need the diplomacy. Because, before I have even drawn breath to give my carefully considered Presidential opinion, the driver has already begun on his own reply. If I may take the liberty of summarising, his view is roughly thus: the country is in a mess because we can’t get our own laws right because it takes forever to get a doctor’s appointment and the roads haven’t been mended and no one can buy a house anymore because the Russians own them all. I am not sure quite how this links to the original question, but I am not stupid enough to say so. The man seems so good at the Don’t Stop Talking game that I wonder whether perhaps he is a WIPO spy. Yesterday’s taxi driver wanted my advice about his varifocals, which was possibly even worse. I spent the rest of that journey terrified we would run over something that hadn’t quite made it into his field of vision. 2 February 2016, 10.30 am
Yay! This is fun! We are doing a little workshop thingy to help design some webinars on unconscious bias. Unconscious bias is what happens when it is so obvious to you that everyone else is inferior that you don’t even notice you’re making that assumption, and anyway it is not an assumption it is a Fact of Life. There is no unconscious bias in the IP professions. But there are quite a lot of Facts of Life. The nice man who is designing the webinars is a psychologist, so it is the kind of meeting in which people are careful with their body language. We begin by telling the nice man about his likely audience. We explain about patent attorneys being scientists, and therefore that they will want to see evidence, and statistical analyses and confidence levels, and don’t forget to specify your units and the ambient temperature and pressure. The nice man smiles happily. He reminds us that he is also a scientist. It seems churlish to point out that patent attorneys do not generally regard psychology as a science. I explain some more about the personality profiles of patent attorneys, ie that they are pedantic and detail-orientated and negative and socially unskilled and – on second thoughts, I say, perhaps we shouldn’t bother after all. He says no it’ll be fine, but he is only a psychologist and I don’t think he really understands the enormity of the problem here. The enormity becomes more apparent when the nice man asks us about the recruitment processes that patent and trade mark attorneys normally use. We shift uneasily in our seats. Well, we say, some CVs come in, and we have a little look, and then we invite some people for interview, and then we have a little chat and see if we like them. And how do you short-list for interview? he asks. Well, obviously, we say, we look for the academically gifted, who you can spot because they have gone to Good Universities, and we look for people with a right and proper command of the English language and a nice way with idiom, and we look for those who are well travelled and enjoy a fine wine, and then if we still have too many we go for the ones who play the oboe because our senior partner plays the oboe. Or sometimes we weed out the ones who live in Kent, because we already have too many people from Kent and we know that Diversity is important. And obviously we throw away any CV with a mis-placed apostrophe, except if the misplacement can be attributed to recruitment agents’ or can be excused because the candidate has since obtained a PhD in the harmonic oscillations’ of jungle frog retinal cells. The nice man sighs. He appears not to care about his own body language, which is now conveying deep anguish. “How do you interview people?” he asks, in a way that suggests he does not really want to know. We tell him about the describe-a-bulldog-clip aptitude tests, which we are proud of because they are almost Objective; and about the grammar tests; and about the friendly, make-you-feel-at-ease chats that we are also proud of because they show our human side. He says: what do you ask about in your friendly chats? Oh, all sorts, we say, like When do you plan to have babies? And Do your parents live nearby to look after your babies? And Has your husband given you permission to relocate? And (for the men) Does your wife have a little job? Or if necessary, When do you plan to get a wife? For today’s discussions, we have managed to find ourselves not only some women, but also a real live Muslim. The real live Muslim is an IP litigator. Over lunch, we ask her what kinds of challenges she’s come across as a member of a minority group. (We mean being a Muslim, not being an IP litigator; obviously the main challenge in being an IP litigator is having to work with other IP litigators.) She looks long and hard at the lunch platter, on which the bacon sandwiches sit next to the cheese sandwiches, and says: sometimes I go hungry in meetings. This is a humbling moment for all of us. Oops. Towards the end of the workshop thingy, when we have all exchanged our worst anecdotes about the unconscious or indeed fully conscious and occasionally downright malicious biases we have come across during our careers, I realise that whatever people say about diversity not being a problem in our dear profession, actually, it is. And actually, on that basis, unconscious bias is a good place to start the training. Or perhaps we should call it reprogramming, which has a more scientific ring to it. 2 February 2016, 7 am
I take an early morning train from Brizzle to the GWR Signalling Works. The Signalling Works lie somewhere between Reading and London Paddington and they might just as well be called the Signalling Doesn’t Work because what they mostly seem to do is stop trains from going along railway tracks. The train that is supposed to take 90 minutes now routinely takes 120 minutes because we have to slow down to negotiate, nay, plead, with the Signalling Works. If I were the Train Manager I would stop doing the regular announcements – we apologise for the late running of this train and any obvious inconvenience caused to your journey today – and start describing the scenery, perhaps a bit of local history, possibly some music (“Don’t Stop Me Now” springs to mind). I would rig up screens in every carriage and lay on a Powerpoint® presentation to illustrate the magnitude of the obvious inconvenience caused and the relative magnitude of the apology proffered. I might even attempt some kind of explanation as to why the signalling works don’t work and what kind of train company imagines it’s OK to bring a whole set of rush-hour trains to a stop in one place as part of its morning schedule. But I am not the Train Manager; I am the CIPA Pee. Which means I probably have a lot more to apologise for than a little bit of obvious inconvenience. 31 January 2016
Mr Davies has asked me to write some suitably dignified text for the Annual Report, outlining the highlights of my Presidential year so far. I sit for several hours trying to think of some. Highlights, I mean. I cannot very well write about the fallings-out and the tellings-off and the several times I have nearly handed back the swimming gala medal with instructions as to where to insert it. I cannot write about Mr Davies putting his head in a kettle. Nor can I very well write about the things I’ve forgotten to do, or remembered to do but not found time for, or remembered to do and had time for but simply been incompetent at. Or about the things I did but hadn’t got permission for. That would not look good at all. I will just have to make something up, I guess. Again. 1 February 2016 At last I have come up with some almost-dignified text. It is about CIPA being more strategic and proactive and increasing stakeholder engagement and generally being much better at management bollocks than it used to be. I am careful not to take sole credit for this: all I have done is to go to the meetings people tell me to go to, and say the things they tell me to say (except where I forget, in which case I may make up a teeny-weeny few things), and engage with whichever stakeholders are on Mr Lampert’s Stakeholder Map plus a few extras like Mr Roberts who fancy a drink or two. If we ended up strategic after all this, it was probably by accident. 27 January 2016
This evening we are gathered together at CIPA Hall to welcome the lucky people who became CIPA Fellows last year. Let me tell you how classy an event this is. The tables have been pushed back against the walls. On the tables there are some paper plates bearing supermarket own-brand nibbles. There are also some bottles of wine, some of beer and a rusty corkscrew. When the guests arrive they must either serve themselves or wait for the President of CIPA to open a bottle for them. This she does with characteristic cackhandedness. For those who don’t fancy alcohol, there are jugs of supermarket own-brand fruit juice and some plastic beakers. At least twelve people arrive to join the celebrations, two of whom are proud spouses accompanying their loved ones to this most momentous of career-defining occasions. Later in the evening, a couple of Council members turn up because they have heard that there is beer on offer and because they enjoy talking to younger members of the profession, who might let’s face it be poachable from your competitors. Also from CIPA we have Amazing Dwaine, our Chief Shouty Person Mr Lampert, Mr Lampert’s camera, Mr Davies, the VeePee and the Pee. The Pee is still me – although only for another 104 days and 23 hours. And we have the Chairman of IPReg, Mr Heap, who I suspect is used to classier occasions than this. The CIPA people mingle with the rather lost-looking new Fellows. Mr Davies reaches for a bottle of beer. The Pee takes it away from him, because he has had a completely dry January thus far and she doesn’t want him to spoil everything for the sake of the few remaining days of the month. Mr Lampert finds Mr Davies a replacement bottle while I’m not looking. There is no formal presentation of fellowship certificates. But there is a box containing some blank sheets of paper rolled up and tied with ribbon. I offer these pantomime certificates round but only one person is really interested in taking one. The others do not seem sure whether they already have proper certificates or not. We sure as hell won’t be able to tell them by looking at the membership database, which has been in crisis since we rebuilt it last autumn and often refuses to divulge its contents unless we can produce a freedom of information request first. The Fellow who takes a certificate asks me to sign it for her and so she lends me a biro and we make up some wording and I sign it with hugs and kisses from the CIPA President. Someone takes a photo of this historic moment on his smartphone. (Where is Mr Lampert when you need him?) (Oh yes, there he is, handing Mr Davies another bottle of beer.) After a while the new Fellows get bored of talking to the CIPA pantomime cast. They have not eaten many of the nibbles and they have not drunk much of the alcohol although that matters less now that Mr Davies has finished January early. I decide it is time to head home. Someone suggests there ought to be some speeches before I go. So I stand in the middle of the room and shout at everyone to shut up and then I make a brief speech in which, as usual, I say absolutely nothing but sound very friendly about it. To be fair, I did have a proper speech prepared, but it was a speech for a different type of occasion and also for a less weary-feeling President to deliver. So it is not much use to me here amongst the cheese straws. Mr Heap then makes a brief speech about how people should be proud to be CIPA Fellows, although he seems to be looking round the room for evidence that this is the case. The final speech is by Mr Davies, about how CIPA relies on its volunteers. He urges the new Fellows to join the CIPA cause and put something back and presumably what he means is we are short of people to (a) buy nibbles, (b) print proper certificates and (c) make proper speeches. Still, at least we didn’t wheel out the collapsible coat rack today. And on the plus side, Mr Davies reckons he’s recruited at least two new people onto Council, although one of them lives and works in Munich and this will mean – we all agree – that for one month in twelve, probably September actually, Council meetings will have to be held at the Hofbräuhaus. We locate Mr Lampert and unite him with his camera, to prevent him trying to take an important CIPA photograph using a half-empty beer bottle. He takes the important photograph. In fact, he takes several, just in case I come out ugly on some of them. We forget to give the new Fellows their pantomime certificates to hold so the photo is just of a group of people with beer bottles, cheese straws, plastic beakers and forced smiles. One for the album, Mr Lampert; thank you. 26 January 2016, 3 pm
I rush back from lunch feeling flustered and plump. It is wet and windy and my umbrella and I disagree about its chirality on at least three occasions. I arrive back at CIPA only just in time for a teleconference, looking like a flustered plump scarecrow that’s been pitched across a field and landed in a nearby recycling bin. My glasses have raindrops all over them, giving a whole new meaning to the phrase “correcting your eyesight”. The telecon is with the EyePeePee and the President of the Licensing Executives Society. We are going to organise a joint seminar. We agree a date and we agree a topic and we agree that it is going to be a fantastic seminar. Then we agree that we will talk again next week because we are all too exhausted by having agreed so much already. This is my kind of meeting. Bite-sized. When we re-do CIPA’s governance structure, I am going to make sure that all meetings are bite-sized like this. If you’ve managed to agree three things in the first ten minutes, why not quit while you’re ahead? 26 January 2016, 1 pm
I have lunch with a fellow Council member who knows a lot more than I do about life, the universe and everything. I do this every now and then – go to lunch with wise people, I mean – in the hope that I will become more erudite myself. Actually I just become plumper. I have chosen today’s venue because it had gin and tonic cheesecake on the dessert menu. I do not order the gin and tonic cheesecake, because the salted caramel thingummy sounds even more delectable. But I wanted to show my respect for a chef who tries to make gin and tonic more widely available. Anyway, the salted caramel thingummy is indeed delectable. Although it is also so closely modelled on an Instant Whip® as to make me wonder whether the chef is in at all today or has simply left some eat-ups with defrosting instructions. The erudite fellow Council member and I talk about CIPA’s governance structure and how we might make it better if we had the courage and a few decades to spare. We conclude that we are better off concentrating on things we have some influence over, like our puddings. |
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