Latest IPQ
The fourth and final issue of Sweet & Maxwell's scholarly Intellectual Property Quarterly for 2005 has now been published and it has a decidedly Chinese flavour to it. First, An Qinghu (Director General, China Trade Mark Office) writes on the discovery of a three-dimensional Chinese trade mark, going back to 1917, while Herchel Smith scholar Ke Shao investigates some of the early philosophical and commercial roots of Chinese copyright law.
Sadly there is no article on Chinese patents, but the other two main features in this issue are, in their very different ways, quite thought-provoking. Barbadian scholar David Bradshaw examines the recently-enacted UK provisions on access to copyright works by the visually impaired, while David J. Brennan (University of Melbourne) looks at English patent claims as property definers, incidentally revisiting some of the IPKat's favourite legal history research by Wyndham Hulme.
Message in the bottle
The IPKat found this nice little piece in today's Telegraph about the part played by packaging in the making of an iconic brand. ABSOLUT and RED BULL are singled out for special praise.
The feature is an interview with Rexam's Lars Emilson, who is currently very much in the news as his company prepares to gobble up the bottle-making bit of St-Gobain.