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SpicyIP wishes all of its readers a very imaginative IP day. Each year, we’ve commemorated this occasion with a short note, and also offered up a new SpicyIP product (a database/website etc) for public consumption.
This year, we bring to you an exclusive IP writing competition titled Pondering IP (PIP). This competition is organised under the aegis of the Ministry of HRD Chair at WB NUJS, but in collaboration with IPTLS (a student run IP society at NUJS) and SpicyIP.
Sai Vinod carried an earlier post, highlighting this competition; further details can be found here. The competition is open to law students throughout the world and we offer a modest prize for the best three essays. So please help spread the word.
We’ve been very fortunate to line up an incredible array of judges representing a multitude of jurisdictions including the UK, US, New Zealand, Canada, Australia and Scotland. In case you’re wondering how the multi-jurisdictional numbers add up, you have to dig a bit into the backgrounds of this stellar panel.
Professor David Vaver, perhaps the most cited IP scholar in Canada is originally from New Zealand. He moved to Canada, then to the UK (where he served as the Director of the Oxford IP Research Center for a good number of years and helped it gain international recognition through several innovative initiatives) and back again to Canada where the folks at Osgoode refuse to let him retire–after all, with him around, its Osgoode as it gets.
Professor Lionel Bently, one of Europe’s leading IP scholars and author of several books and articles including a classic treatise on intellectual property law (which is now the standard IP text book in many jurisdictions, including India) is of Australian vintage.
Professor Graeme Dinwoodie is of Scottish heritage and spent a large part of his career teaching in the United States, where, among other things he ran a very reputed IP programe out of Chicago Kent law school, wrote a stream of high impact scholarly pieces on various facets of intellectual property law and was conferred with one of the highest teaching awards (the Pattishall Medal for Teaching Excellence) before he moved to the UK to take over as the Director of the Oxford IP Research Centre (OIPRC).
As for Judge Rader, although he has not switched borders yet, his reputation is by all accounts very “trans-border” in scope. Many would agree that he qualifies as a well known mark in several jurisdictions, where he routinely visits and speaks, leaving one to ponder the source of his indefatigable energy, good cheer and occasional creative outpourings on the non IP side, which have rightly earned him the sobriquet, the Rock Star of IP.
And now, its time for our short World IP day note. As always, let me fall back on the inspiring theme conceptualised by WIPO this year to mark this momentous day, namely that celebrating our visionary innovators and creators.
I had a tough time tossing up between several innovators who’ve left lasting impressions on me. I travelled back in time to experience the creative vision of Sushruta as he dug deep into a pair of eyes to perform what might rank as the first cataract operation ever, the courage of Aryabhata in theorising that the earth rotated on its own axis and the other-wordliness of Patanjali who effectively engineered the path to salvation by crafting the Yoga Sutras (a transcendental series of postures and breathing techniques). And more recently, the humane touch of Jagdish Chandra Bose who abandoned a very lucrative area of research (radio waves) and jaunted off to demonstrate that plants have feelings too!
All of them were exceptionally brilliant in their own way, and it was well nigh impossible to come up with a rank list of sorts. It then struck me that there was one creator who stood head and shoulders above the rest. And her name was mother nature….a mother who embodies the highest form of creativity and innovation ever known to mankind and whose offerings represent the best of functionality and design.
And so I end this note by paying homage to her, with the hope that she continues to inspire each day, helping us unleash our imagination to the hilt. Have a wonderfully stimulating IP Day!
ps: image from here
Very appropriate to remember mother nature on World IP Day. We need only witness the large number of products useful to humanity that have been invented by studying natural substances/phenomena. Perhaps a recent example is self-healing materials mimicking skin of live animals (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/03/120327091223.htm). Although humans have been trying to imitate nature for a long time, it is in the past 25 years that biomimetics has advanced a lot, thanks to sophisticated microscopic tools starting from the scanning tunneling microscope. “Biomimetics” appears to have been coined officially in the 1950s by American, Otto Schmitt.
A news on World IP Day.
The writ petition filed by CPIO challenging the orders of CIC dismissed on World IP day.
Excellent one
Every year on April 26, World Intellectual Property Day is celebrated to highlight innovation and creativity and how intellectual property fosters and encourages them. This year it focuses on Visionary Innovators – individuals whose ingenuity and artistry have broken molds, opened new horizons and made a lasting impact.
How World IP Day began
To increase general understanding of what IP really means. WIPO member states chose April 26 – the day on which the WIPO Convention came into force in 1970 – as World IP Day.
Since then, IP Day offers an exciting chance each year to join with others around the globe, to highlight, discuss and demonstrate how the IP system contributes to the flourishing of music and the arts and to driving the technological innovation that helps shape our world.