A fire sale
Utynam has heard plenty of stories about clever counterfeiters who can make knock-off goods look indistinguishable from the real deal.
But a case from Mississippi reveals the rather less ingenious side of would-be fakers.
Police officers in the town of Jackson last month arrested two men for trying to pass off blocks of wood wrapped in duct tape and bubble wrap as Toshiba laptops, according to local news outlet WLBT.
The men had been flogging the microchip-free timber at fairgrounds in the area – not a natural place for legitimate computer purchases, Utynam thinks. The two now face charges of trade mark infringement and the illegal sale of goods bearing counterfeit labels. Each charge could see them fined up to $10,000 and jailed for up to five years.
"By the time you take it and get it home, you find you've purchased a block of wood, you may as well throw it in the fireplace. It's no good," Lt Jeffery Scott of the Hinds County Sheriff's Department, is quoted as saying.
The police say that no-one is believed to have bought the fake computers, which is news that comes as some relief to Utynam. Unless, that is, the unlucky purchasers are simply too embarrassed to admit it.
At home with India’s lawyers
Congratulations to some of India's "legal superstars' on becoming cover models in the August 2 issue of Businessworld magazine (pictured).
The article, "The charge of the IPR brigade", looks at the emergence of more than 200 boutiques in the past five years, as demand for IP work (and in particular litigation) in the country booms.
Equally interesting for Utynam, though, were the intimate profiles and at-home pictures of some of his Indian counterparts. Did you know, for example, that Dev Robinson of Amarchand & Mangaldas & Suresh A Shroff is a keen photographer, Pravin Anand of Anand & Anand created an IP board game, Anuradha Salhotra of Lall Lahiri & Salhotra is a dance enthusiast, Hemant Singh of Inttl Advocare is a guitarist and Diljeet Titus of Titus & Co is an auto buff?
Utynam looks forward to further interesting revelations, perhaps in the Indian versions of Hello! or OK! magazines.
IP lawyer serves up victory
Congratulations to former media and IP lawyer Adam Liaw on winning the prestigious Masterchef TV competition in Australia.
Liaw, born in Adelaide, South Australia, served in the IP department of Adelaide boutique Kelly & Co for almost four years before moving to Tokyo to work for the Walt Disney Company.
He must have picked up some useful tips during his stay there, which helped him to win the gruelling, 14-week TV competition. The final, in which Liaw defeated a 20-year old student from the same state, won a peak audience of 5.7 million viewers, more than the televised debate between prime ministerial contenders Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott, which was shifted to avoid clashing with the popular programme.
Sadly, it seems as though his new-found fame has persuaded Liaw to abandon the world of IP and set up an izakaya or Japanese-style pub in Sydney. Utynam is looking forward to popping in during his next trip down under.
An app for IP lawyers
Utynam is pleased to relate an iPhone story that is not about patent litigation. Instead, a US law firm has announced the launch of IP Lawyer – an aptly-named iPhone application just for IP attorneys.
The so-called app, created by IP firm Banner & Witcoff, provides full search access to the USPTO's patent and trade mark databases, as well as corresponding assignments. It also includes a library of up-to-date local rules for district courts, the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, the Federal Rules of Evidence, the Manual of Patent Examination and Procedure, the US Constitution and more. Best of all, the app is available for free to iPhone users.
Earlier this year, Morrison & Foerster also launched its own iPhone app called MoFo2Go, which gives clients access to information about the firm and its attorneys.
The trend could soon make its way to the USPTO – in comments to a blog post by USPTO director David Kappos earlier this year, users encouraged the Office to launch its own iPhone app. Considering Kappos's focus on making USPTO information more accessible and user-friendly, Utynam would not be surprised to see lawyers filing patent and trade mark applications from their iPhones in the near future.