Branding stories; WIPO new online brand-search tool and Coca Cola

WIPO have launched another new tool this month.  See “WIPO Launches New On-Line Tool to Facilitate Brand Searches“. From their press release:

“A new on-line tool launched by WIPO … will make it easier to search over 640,000 records relating to internationally protected trademarks, appellations of origin and armorial bearings, flags and other state emblems as well as the names, abbreviations and emblems of intergovernmental organizations. The Global Brand Database allows free of charge, simultaneous brand-related searches across multiple collections.”

Thanks to WIPO for another free resource.  It is part of WIPO Gold, a “free public resource which provides a one-stop gateway to WIPO’s global collections of searchable IP data”

And the Coca Cola reference?  Well, whilst on the subject of brands, I was reading the Intellectual Asset Management blog.  They posted an item: “The Coca-Cola brand suffers a sharp fall in value as Google hits number one”

Love it or loathe it, no matter where in the world you are, the chances of finding Coca Cola are pretty high.  It was interesting to read therefore that

“for the first time [Coca Cola] finds itself outside the list of the world’s top 10 most valuable brands, according to the annual Brand Finance 500 study”

The article concludes:

“…although there is a lot more to brands than trademarks, it does means that if you are working in-house as a trademark operator, the job that you are doing is absolutely vital to the maintenance (as well as the creation, of course) of profoundly important assets. I am sure that this is not huge news to the trademark practitioners reading this blog, but I wonder how many other people appreciate it. My suspicion is that it is not as many as should be the case.”

To The Best of our Knowledge; Wisconsin Public Radio

http://www.wpr.org/book/080720a.html
In this program (see lead link http://www.wpr.org/book/080720a.html*) host Steve Paulson talks to Paul Miller, the “unofficial spokesman for remix culture in his persona as DJ Spooky”, and to Lawrence Lessig, a law professor at Stanford University and the founder of Creative Commons.

“Mash-up” is a not-so-new art form that has become more visible as a result of the proliferation of digital media and the internet. The use of existing works of art to create “new” works of art (Rip, Mix and Burn) raises copyright issues. Lessig: “I’m not an abolitionist…. but copyright is over regulated“.

Lessig’s latest book, “Code: Version 2.0”, is available for free under a Creative Commons licensing agreement.  To download and/or remix: http://codev2.cc/download+remix/

Post written by Peter Bloch, consultant to CAS-IP

(*From my European location I cannot listen to the programme.  I suspect its a geographical restriction for copyright reasons.. sigh…., Kay)

New book on the market:”Gene Patents and Collaborative Licensing Models”

http://www.cambridge.org/uk/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521896733

CAS-IP manager, Victoria Henson-Apollonio contributed a chapter to a book that is now available from Cambridge University Press.  The full title of the book is:

“Gene Patents and Collaborative Licensing Models Patent Pools, Clearinghouses, Open Source Models and Liability Regimes”

The chapter that Victoria contributed is entitled:

“The International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA). The Standard Material Transfer Agreement as implementation of a limited compensatory liability regime”

Click here to read an excerpt from the book.

BOOK REVIEW on patents4life.com: Janice M Mueller, Patent Law, Third Edition, Aspen Publishers (2009)

http://www.patents4life.com/2009/05/book-review-httpwwwamazoncompatent-law.html

This review of Prof. Janice Mueller’s book, Patent Law, 3rd Ed on patents4life.com could be of interest to anyone wanting an excellent and readable reference book covering U.S. Patent Law.

Prof. Mueller has been the Chair of the External Advisory Committee (EAC) for us since 2001.  We are honored to have such an eminent scholar, teacher and practitioner as our Board chair.

Communication tools for communities of practice events

http://www.cas-ip.org/public/uploads/2009/05/communications-skills-from-2009-npi-workshop-in-mombasa.pdf

The above link will take you to a document that was produced by Bev Trayner after she facilitated a workshop as part of the NPI in January of this year. 

The document is called “Learning activities: some communication tools for communities of practice events”.  Almost all of the members of the NPI have talked about the importance of raising awareness of IP issues within their institutions.  These tools and methods can be employed to achieve just that.  IP management isn’t an easy concept to communicate so creativity in ones approach can certainly help transfer the message more effectively.

TED now talks many languages…

http://www.ted.com/index.php/OpenTranslationProject

Great move by TED to initiate a translation project on its site.  TED’s wealth of video resources are now slowly becoming available in a variety of languages.  Their site says:

“the TED Open Translation Project brings TEDTalks beyond the English-speaking world by offering subtitles, interactive transcripts and the ability for any talk to be translated by volunteers worldwide”

The project in itself is an interesting one, translators are working to bring these resources to a wider audience for the sole reward of attribution.  Oh, the power of attribution for effective knowledge sharing is not to be underestimated!

CREATIVE ECOLOGIES: Where Thinking is a Proper Job

<http://www.uqp.uq.edu.au/book_display.php?id=9780702236990&type=s>

John Howkins’ book  “The Creative Economy: How People Make Money from Ideas” (2002) made an impact by taking a holistic approach to what we often refer to as the information or knowledge economy.

His new book goes a step further in addressing the nature of creativity and its relationship to innovation within a larger context.

Howkins talks about how:

The way economics and business has approached (economic choices) for the past fifty years has been to focus on one-off innovation implemented in mass production with ever lower costs and prices. Business has seen creativity and innovation as specialist functions. I call this the repetitive economy. We are now seeing a shift to the creative economy where, although basic goods and services have not diminished in absolute terms, the bulk of growth comes from their added symbolic value.

Howkins is no ivory tower academic and brings a wealth of deep and broad real world experience to bear on his explorations.  In 2006 he was listed as one of the Fifty Most Important People in Intellectual Property by ‘Managing Intellectual Property’ magazine and in 2007 he was nominated #1 Creative Star in China by ‘Beijing Business News’.

You can download the first chapter of Creative Ecologies for free at:
<http://www.uqp.uq.edu.au/book_display.php?id=9780702236990&type=s>

I’m going to buy the book, and I think that it is a probably a “must read” for anyone who is interested in a fresh and stimulating exploration of the subject.

Post written by Peter Bloch, consultant to CAS-IP