Anderson

This blogger has happy memories as a teenager of family TV viewing of the BBC comedy series Fawlty Towers . Even today his generation will often - generally after a few beers - recall hilarious moments and catch phrases ("I can speak English. I learn it from a book") from the show. Even his children love the show as its humour is timeless. So it's not surprising that an Australian-based dinner show Faulty Towers is, according to the Australian Sydney Morning Herald , a great hit with tickets costing up to AUD 159. A UK run in the summer will see tickets of GBP 59. John Cleese has tweeted that he is amazed about the profits being made from the show, which has been running for a number of years. Cleese seems to be looking for a licensing deal as he's added that there is nothing wrong with the show. The question is - how strong is his licensing rights? The formats of TV shows are notoriously difficult to protect with different courts in different countries seemingly c...

The United States is struggling with the high cost of healthcare.   Notably, one cause of the high cost is the price of pharmaceuticals.   The importance of the issue and the pressure is exemplified by the focus of the various presidential candidates.   Not only are the Democratic candidates Bernie Sanders and Hilary Clinton concerned, but so is Republican candidate Donald Trump .   Interestingly, California , through an initiative, may directly confront pharmaceutical pricing for many Californians.   One critique of the current system is that many pharmaceuticals were developed using government funding.   Thus, at least partially, the development costs to create a pharmaceutical may have been borne by the public.   Then, the argument goes, the public must pay again (in many cases) through the supra-competitive price set by a pharmaceutical company because of a patent.   The public essentially pays twice for the pharmaceutical.   The Bay...

Transporting may be a well-known book by Irvine Welsh and later a reasonably successful film, but it is also a hobby enjoyed by thousands of teenagers  - mostly boys - in the UK. This blogger has to confess that he too was one of those that used to spend Saturdays collecting numbers of the DMUs and EMUs as well as locos as they passed him by. So it was with great pleasure that I recently read a story and IP and railways in the UK's premier railway journal Modern Railways . Those of you who have visited London in the last few years will know of the Oyster card . It's basically a contactless payment card which you use to check into and out of the Underground and more recently on the suburban network. It's a prepaid card and the fare for the journey is debited from your account.  Its introduction was facilitated by private finance. Basically Transport for London (TfL) drew up a tender for installing the gates and setting up the system. The contract was won in 1998 by a consort...

This is supposed to be a “record breaking” deal for a University of California developed technology that was transferred to industry.   The invention is the prostate drug Xtandi .   UCLA’s Chancellor Gene Block stated: Xtandi is the result of a unique collaboration between researchers from various academic units across campus and an outstanding example of basic science leading to a therapy that is bringing extraordinary benefits to prostate cancer patients worldwide.   By selling future royalty rights to Royalty Pharma, we are strategically supporting one of our essential missions — funding and generating research with practical applications that serve the public good. Facilitating equal access to education also is a campus priority, and we will use a portion of the sale proceeds to support scholarships and fellowships. Wow!   Talk about a dream deal for UCLA.   I am sure that every technology transfer office in the world and supporter of the Bayh-Dole Act g...

The business of movies has three characteristics that have longed intrigued this blogger. The first is the dynamic whereby a small number of successful movies not only constitute a profit center, but also subsidize the majority of a studio’s movies, which are usually much less successful. Something similar goes in the book business, although the costs to produce a new book are usually only a fraction of what it takes to commercially launch a movie. The second is the notion of the “franchise”, where the initial movie is followed by multiple sequels, such the “Star Wars” series. As with any successful brand, the goal is for repeated custom, this time by the movie goer. The third is the notion of the “flop”, which seems to describe a movie made at a high cost under the belief that success is all but assured. When the flop is the maiden voyage of what the producers had hoped would be a multi-movie franchise, the pain is magnified. This is not to say that movie makers have not been war...

In a recent post on IP Finance , I discussed the late Syracuse University Law School Professor Ted Hagelin’s excellent casebook titled, Technology Innovation Law and Practice.   Professor Hagelin was the founder and Director of the very successful Technology Commercialization Law Program at Syracuse University College of Law; Director of the New York State Science and Technology Law Center; Crandall Melvin Professor of Law; and Kauffman Professor of Entrepreneurship and Innovation.   When I wrote that post, I did not realize that University of Wisconsin Law School’s Vilas Research Fellow & George Young Bascom Professor in Business Law Shubha Ghosh had been hired by Syracuse.   This is an excellent hire and quite a coup for Syracuse.   Professor Ghosh will be the new Crandall Melvin Professor of Law at Syracuse University College of Law and director of the Technology Commercialization Law Program.   Professor Ghosh is a leading law professor in the U.S. and...

Our friend at Oxfirst , Roya Ghafele, has let us know about another timely webinar sponsored by Oxfirst.   Dirk Weiler, Board and IPR Special Committee Chairman of European Telecommunications Standards Institute [ETSI] & Christian Loyau, Legal and Governance Director of ETSI will present: “The ETSI Patent Policy”.   The talk will cover: “ [An] explain[ation of] the main elements of ETSI’s IPR policy, the current challenges and the way changes to the policy are agreed [to] via a consensus based process taking into account all affected stakeholder interests.” Mr. Weiler’s biography states: “Dirk Weiler is Chairman of the ETSI Board and the ETSI IPR Special Committee, and Head of Standards Management & Horizontal in the Networks Business of Nokia. With 30 years of technical and management experience in the telecoms industry he regularly speaks and writes about standardization, patents and the interplay of both. He holds an advanced degree in physics (Diplom-Physiker) f...