28 November 2016, 2 pm
Well! It turns out we did not need the wise Counsel’s advice after all. Because Brexit does indeed mean Brexit-apart-from-the-UPC. The UK has announced that it is going ahead with preparations to ratify the UPC Agreement. Even though we may not be EU members by the time it comes into force. Even though we may not be able to stay part of it once we’ve stuck two fingers up at the CJEU and re-branded our passports. I am not sure how The Government got this past The People, much less past The Tabloids, but I gather it had something to do with the fact that no one is remotely interested in IP, and sometimes, just sometimes, that is a Good Thing. Mr Lampert is very excited and wastes no time in doing shouty things on CIPA’s behalf. Mr Rollins stops being grumpy for long enough to say something excited for The Times. Mr Lampert and Mr Davies tweet till their thumbs hurt. Monsieur Le Chat d’IP takes his eye off Monsieur Le President de l’EPO in order to write about this momentous development, and Monsieur Le President de l’EPO promptly gets embroiled in yet more labour relations debacles. The IPO are also very pleased with themselves, because now they can get back to choosing the colour schemes for the UPC building in London. So we are still hoping to host one of the UPC Central Divisions, are we? Hmm. The words “What could possibly go wrong?” spring to mind.
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28 November 2016, 10 am
What better way to spend a bright, sunny, frosty morning than staring into the bright, sunny faces of this year’s new student members? It is the first of our two 2016 induction days. I have updated my slides a little from last year and all the previous years I have been giving my sad talks about how to make clients happy, but I have forgotten to update the bits about ITMA. ITMA is now CITMA. They are Chartered now, you know. The trade mark trainees in the audience waste no time in pointing this out to me. They are not keen to waste time listening to the rest of my talks, either. But I pull rank and tell them no one is having lunch until they can all look after clients as well as I did, before I gave up looking after clients in favour of looking after other patent attorneys. Also no one is having lunch until they have heard what I have to say about complaints handling, because after a year or two of looking after patent attorneys, I am an expert in complaints handling. After lunch, we split the patent and trade mark trainees. The trade mark ones go off into a separate room with the President and Chief Executive of CITMA, and talk about how lovely it is now that they are Chartered, you know. In our room, Mr Davies and I, with the help of Mr Muttock who is in charge of The Informals, AKA Little CIPA, talk to the patent folk about how lovely it is having been Chartered for so long that you are bored of it. We ask them what we can do to liven things up. They do not appear to understand the question. When the trade mark folk return, we discover that the CITMA Chief Executive has been handing out free gifts, like pens saying “We’re Chartered Now, You Know”. We think this is a very underhand way of proceeding. Now the patent folk will start demanding CIPA pens saying “We’ve Been Chartered So Long We’re Bored of It”. And where will that lead, I ask you? We have only just got rid of the last load of CIPA tat, I mean memorabilia, and the CIPA pens with no ink in that we bought for the International Liaison Committee. 25 November 2016
Today I have driven to Newport because the IPO are throwing a party of their own. It is a very select party, of top IP people from CIPA, CITMA, FICPI-UK, the IP Federation and of course the IPO itself. I have been invited because I know a lot about diversity parties, which is not much as professional credentials go, but it lends a namby-pamby, caring tone to the proceedings and this is good for the Annual Report. We hear high-level updates from the IPO and then we hold high-level workshops to explore things about IP in the future. I imagine this is what meetings are like in the Department for Brexit at the moment, with lots of high-level people gathered around flip charts exploring things about the future, except that the Department for Brexit is unlikely to be exploring exhaustion of rights, as opposed to exhaustion in a more generic sense. I am unable to contribute anything much by way of exploratory thinking, but luckily everyone else is. So I sit back looking namby-pamby and caring, and wait for lunch. At the end each group reads out the ideas it has explored, and the IPO make notes. Then the patent attorneys among us say: Yes but what’s really going to happen after Brexit? And the IPO say: The government is exploring a plan to consider this going forward, but we cannot say anything about it yet because it is all very hush-hush and we cannot afford for our going-forward plans to be leaked to Angela Merkel in case she laughs before we have actually gone forward. Then the trade mark attorneys among us say: We are Chartered now, you know, so you had better make sure we are properly represented when you go forward. And the IPO say: Of course, of course; only, don’t tell Angela Merkel. Lunch follows. I attempt to eat one of those sandwiches that is architecturally unsuited for being eaten in discrete mouthfuls. Whilst talking to the Acting Chief Executive of the IPO, I lose control of several pieces of roasted vegetable and an inordinately long lettuce leaf. The Acting Chief Executive is the very model of diplomacy. But I notice I have put him off eating any lunch of his own. After lunch comes the namby-pamby bit about diversity. It involves some HR people from the IPO, a large tub of jelly babies and an exercise that requires half of us to tell the other half how to draw a kite. The people with the pens are not allowed to query the instructions and the patent attorneys among us find this quite hard. At the end of the exercise we discover that everyone’s kite looks a little bit different; the patent attorneys find this hard to cope with too. We are told that different people need different working environments if you are to get the most out of their kite-drawing skills: some people need peace and quiet, others need to share their ideas, still others need to eat jelly babies. If you allow for these differences it is called Being Inclusive. If you stand over your employees with a stopwatch and require them to write letters in exactly the same style that you do, it is called Being Unpopular. 24 November 2016, 6 pm
The panel discussion, which wasn’t a discussion at all, is now over, and we have all retired for drinks and nibbly bits. There is still a wonderful party atmosphere. People obviously like talking about diversity. Mr Smyth continues to hand out rainbow unicorn bath ducks, and I work my way around the room apologising to people for things I have not done properly, like chairing the panel discussion for example. Lots of people offer to help with IP Inclusive. Oh good, I say, how are you at chairing? 24 November 2016, 4 pm
I am at the event which we have to call a party. And it is. Lots of people have gathered to celebrate the first year of our Charter. Mr Smyth has donned yet another technicolour dream waistcoat and is handing out rainbow unicorn bath ducks again. I make a bit of a speech, to which no one listens because they are looking at their rainbow unicorn ducks and wondering. Ms Evans makes a bit more of a speech, because she has been in charge of the Charter and making everything happen. People listen to this bit. Until the part where Ms Evans says We need more volunteers to help us do stuff, at which point they start subjecting their rainbow unicorn ducks to fresh scrutiny. Next we have a keynote speaker who tells us how to increase ethnic diversity in the business world. She is an entertaining and inspiring speaker. People listen again. She says there is quite a high proportion of BAME people in the UK but funnily enough, a much smaller proportion of them in the professions, and an even smaller proportion when it comes to senior roles. Clearly this raises some questions about what is happening to all the BAME people along the way. A lot of them are being arrested, of course, for loitering with intent to be BAME, and for being BAME without due care and attention. But this does not totally explain the attrition rates on the route to becoming Senior Partner. So we follow the keynote speech with my panel discussion, in which some BAME people are supposed to answer my probing questions about the challenges they’ve faced in a predominantly white profession, and what the predominantly white profession can do to make things better. Only, things go a little bit wrong. I have prepared many probing questions, but each panellist takes five minutes to answer her or his first question, and it is clear I am not going to have time for questions 6 to 36 at all. By the time I come to the fifth panellist, I have given up trying to be a cutting edge journalist and am minded simply to ask: So, what is it you want us to hear? I won’t even have time for the one about favourite TV programmes. My fears for the success of the EPO’s conference, at which I am supposed to be moderating a panel of similar size and seniority, but with the added complication of five different cultures and native languages, have just doubled. 24 November 2016, 2 pm
I arrive at CIPA on my way to another IP Inclusive jolly. At last the rain has stopped. Unfortunately the flooding, which ruined many people’s train journeys earlier this week, including mine, has now spread to the CIPA kitchen. A large puddle sits underneath the fridge. It looks like the kind of puddle that harbours a great deal of biodiversity, and indeed that would sustain the biodiversity through a significant part of its life cycle. I wrap my plastic salad pots in an extra layer of carrier bag before slipping them in between the other wet things in the fridge. And talking of diversity, I must be off to set up and meet and greet people. It is the event which we have to call a party. Because it is. |
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