6 November 2015, 9 am
Once again it is Workshop Day for our course on EPO proceedings. The delegates look bleary-eyed, as though they have just arrived in Munich on the first flight of the day. I am gratified to see that they are throwing themselves into their roles like this. Even to the point of not having read all the papers yet. Since I have been up since 4 am, I have little sympathy with their bleary-eyedness and we launch straight in with a hard-hitting talk about written submissions and auxiliary requests. This bit is always good fun because our tutors include barristers (who think auxiliary requests are a sign of weakness), patent attorneys (who daren’t leave the house without them) and a former Board of Appeal Chairman (who will not let you file them anyway). And Mr Roberts, who doesn’t take anything seriously. 6 November 2015, noon I have sneaked out sneakily from the workshops – from which, to be fair, no one will miss me – to meet with some visitors from the Chinese IP Office. I have left Mr Roberts with instructions to keep the delegates entertained. He seems more than happy to rise to this challenge and I have no doubt that by the time I return, no one will be taking anything seriously. The Chinese visitors are polite and smiley. There is a slightly awkward moment when I offer them a drink but no one from the CIPA group seems prepared to operate the hot water dispenser for them, but I think we get away with it. (I presume that, because I am the only female in the CIPA group, it is expected that I will deal with the hospitality and hot water side of things, but since I am also the only President in the CIPA group, I feel obliged to stay in the doorway greeting people instead.) We give a short presentation about how fantastic CIPA is. CIPA has been going since 1882, we say. Although obviously, we say, not all of us remember that far back. We say: CIPA is full of top-notch, world-class patent attorneys. Better than the Germans. We are much better at arguing than the Germans. Although history might suggest it’s a pretty close call. The Chinese, however, are not really interested in CIPA; they want to know about IPReg and the PEB and who gives UK patent attorneys their registration certificates. In reply to their many probing questions, I make up many authoritative-sounding answers. I do not tell them about the presentation evening where we hand out blank sheets of paper, rolled up with pretty pink ribbons, to the people who’ve passed their qualifying exams. I have a hazy idea that the real registration certificates are prepared by the IPReg Pixies, but I am worried this idea might lose something in translation so I keep it to myself. At the end of the meeting, Mr Lampert (who is not only our Chief Shouty Person but also our Chief Smiley Picture Taker) takes a photograph of us all looking smiley together. The people from the Chinese IPO give us a beautiful gift. I have no idea what the beautiful gift is, even after they have explained it to me. But it is in a beautiful box and the beautiful box has the word “calligraphy” on the front so I think it may be more up-market than a UK IPO mouse mat. I will open it later.
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