Round the world in two days

“I’ve been practicing law since 1978, but I still found the briefings useful. So many things change in so many countries—it’s impossible to keep up,” said Bill Coughlin, President and CEO of Ford Global Technologies, during the lunch break yesterday: “The range of countries and sessions is always spot on, and updated every year.”

The Academic Course takes place today and yesterday. Among subjects covered on Saturday were the Americas, international treaties, Europe and Australasia. Jeffrey L. Van Hoosear of Knobbe Martens gave the talk on international treaties. “I emphasize that most of the systems I only know from a practical point of view—how they have affected me in my practice,” said Van Hoosear. “But some were launched in the 26 years I have been practicing. My strongest memories are of OHIM opening in Europe. It’s so successful now, but at the start it was really only the small, entrepreneurial companies that were willing to risk the new system. That’s usually the case with these treaties—big companies have too much to lose.”

The second day of the course will look at Asia and Africa, but also include some non-geographic topics, such as famous trademarks and the UDRP system. “The country panels are usually fairly consistent, but we try to insert some more topical discussions every year,” says Dee Henderson of Broadcom, who has helped organize the program for the past four years. It evolved out of a course at John Marshall Law School in Chicago, when someone looked at the attendees and found out more were taking the course for CLE credit than college credit. “In California you have to do 13 hours of CLE every year, but it is looked at on a three-year basis. So if you’ve done nothing for three years and need to get it all in one hit—this is the course you come on!” said Van Hoosear.

The country-by-country analysis is clearly more than just CLE credit to the 55 registrants, however, most of whom were frantically scribbling notes as Van Hoosear explained the importance of the Paris Convention, Community trade mark and Madrid System. He only started doing the session last year as a last-minute replacement. “I love doing it now though, I love being involved with INTA” he said, agreeing that one advantage is the presentation doesn’t change much from year to year. “The questions are fairly similar too—everyone wants to know about money. What are the cost savings, what are the efficiencies, what can I file myself directly?” he added.

The second day of the Academic Course takes place today in Room 154AB.