To my horror, I seem to have spent quite a lot of time recently reading about and thinking about the philosophy of IP law. A year ago, I would have rolled my eyes and edged away from anyone who said something at once so pompous and so dull. At heart, I am a realist, a pragmatist. I’m primarily interested in knowing things that will help my clients win. Until recently, I took a ruthlessly...
I know, I know – we are all intellectual property specialists; we have the words ‘intellectual property’ sprinkled liberally throughout our websites; we read intellectual property articles and cases; we go to intellectual property conferences…. And yet. “Intellectual property” is just a catch-all, a voluminous handbag filled with largely unrelated items, some...
The other day one of our kids asked, “Mum, if you love Oliver Sacks so much, why don’t you marry him?” Well, quite a number of reasons really. Sadly, he’s now dead. And he was gay. And too old for me. Plus, unilateral adulation isn’t the healthiest basis for a relationship. And he did have his demons – he was a complicated person. Also, I already...
Good news for parties looking to set up a quick and hopefully-not-too-dirty private IP dispute resolution procedure – they seem to work. The High Court has scrutinised one such arrangement carefully, in the context of an application to set aside a statutory demand for damages and costs flowing from the decision of an independent expert IP lawyer, and it all stacked up (Beacham Parts &...
If I’m honest, part of the reason I came back to the Bar after nearly six years hearing cases at IPONZ was that I was a bit lonely. I really did like lots of things about that role. I loved running hearings, and I got huge satisfaction from the way patiently untangling each aspect of the law and the facts would usually lead to a clear overall answer. It seemed like magic – the slow...
The topic that everyone seems to be talking about, everywhere you turn, is access to justice. My conscience was pricked at a cocktail party talk last year by Dr Bridgette Toy-Cronin from the University of Otago’s Legal Issues Centre. She threw down the gauntlet to a room full of sleek civil litigators, challenging them to help a broader sweep of litigants, especially those of limited means...
