Bad luck for Harry; do you want to be a policy advisor?

Puttar beats Potter

According to Reuters, Harry Potter has failed to cast his spell over the Delhi High Court. The Court has held that Hari Puttar: a Comedy of Terrors can be screened. Warner Brothers failed to convince the court that the title was too close to Harry Potter. According the court, a Hindi-speaking rural child wouldn't have heard of Harry Potter while an English speaking city-dwelling child would know enough about Harry Potter to not mistake him for Puttar, a child left alone in London by his parents, seemingly without magical powers.

The IPKat can see that confusion was unlikely to be an issue here, but he's left with the distinct feeling that the combination of 'Hari' and 'Puttar' wasn't quite coincidental. He feels a little sorry for Warner Bros - if they hadn't brought this action, who, outside of the Hindi film-viewing market, would have heard of Hari Puttar?


UK IPO Policy Advisors

Ever wanted to win friends and influence people? The UK IPO is offering you the chance to do the latter. It's advertising five new positions as Policy Advisors in the Copyright and Enforcement Directorate and International Policy Directorate. According to the advert 'If you take up this challenge you’ll be involved in driving forward policy in a key area for the UK - building relationships with industry, NGO’s and negotiating with and influencing European and international counterparts.'

Diplomacy never was Tiddles' strong point

More details here.

Thoughts for Thursday

The IPKat is delighted to inform his readers that the Judicial Appointments Commission (JAC) for England and Wales is currently inviting applications for the office of High Court Judge. The closing date for applications is 4 March 2008. 21 vacancies are to be filled: 15 in the Queen's Bench Division and 6 in the Chancery Division -- including one intellectual property specialist. Those selected for Chancery vacancies will also be selected as members of the panel of Chairmen of the Competition Appeal Tribunal. Click here for further details.


The IPKat's friend Ibrahim Waziri spent a lot of time and effort researching and writing his LLM dissertation, "Copyright management, disruptive technologies and digital rebellion: can a middle ground be achieved?", and he'd be ever so pleased to send a copy to any interested reader who might wish to peruse it and even comment on it. If you'd like a copy, just email Ibrahim here.


About to launch on another bit of original research, the IPKat wonders whether his readers can recommend him anything good that has been written within the past few years on res judicata and estoppel in intellectual property infringement litigation, other than case notes on L'Oreal v Special Effects. If you can recommend anything, just email the IPKat here. If a decent bibliography is compiled, he will naturally make it available. Any language, any jurisdiction will do for starters!