As per usual, the co-chairs are Lilian Edwards, Professor of Internet Law, University of Southampton, and Director of ILAWS, and Andres Guadamuz, Co-Director, (fo the newly re-branded) SCRIPT Law and Technology Centre at the University of Edinburgh.

So if you…

have a paper burning for the oxygen of publicity on any aspect of law AND technology, science, geek culture, blogs, popular culture, wikis, science fiction or fantasy, computer games, digital culture, gender on-line, MMORPGS, virtual property or online human personae, then come to the third edition, GikIII.

Abstracts are due by 15 July 2008 — see the GIKII site for details.

The keynote speakers will be Sir Hugh Laddie (former Senior Patent Judge) and Jiang Zhipei, the chief IP Justice of the Supreme People’s Court of China (subject to visa approval). Other speakers will include leading legal and patent practitioners from the PRC.

“Enforcement of IP in China” Gordon Gao and Dixon Zhang, Fangda Partners, Beijing and Shenzhen. Fangda Partners specialises in IP dispute resolution, including IP litigation. Gordon Gao prosecuted the first ever trademark infringement case in Shenzhen that lead to the imprisonment of the perpetrator. In 2007, Gordon was ranked as the leading IP lawyer in China by Chambers Global. He has a PhD in chemistry from Stanford University and a JD from Hastings Law School (University of California, San Francisco). Dixon Zhang has extensive experience in IPR-related administrative enforcement, investigation, judicial protection, litigation, and filing and registration in the PCR. Dixon has an LL.B from Fudan University, School of Law.

“Patent prosecution strategy in China for inventions in biotechnology” Barbara Fleck, Marks and Clerk Barbara is a European Patent Attorney and Chartered Patent Attorney. She works in all areas of Biotechnology and Life Sciences and has particular experience in the field of plant-related inventions, including genetically modified organisms and Plant Variety Rights.

The event will take place at the UK IPO offices and is an all day event. Full details and registration at the RSC site: Chinese IP Law Symposium

• Jeremy Reed (Hogarth Chambers) - speaking on “Software Patents and the Recent Developments in the Law”
• A patent examiner from the UK-IPO - speaking on “The Role of the Patent Examiner”

Full details up on the IMPACT blog.

Technology policy has never been more critical. Privacy, security and the appropriate balance for copyright are now central policy making challenges, if the economic and social potential of the Internet is to be realized. In this lecture, Professor Lessig will build upon the work of Oxford Professor Jonathan Zittrain to identify a critical dynamic in policy making affecting the Internet, and how technologists have become central to that dynamic. The threats to privacy, security, and the proper protection for copyright are not technical, but political. The remedies to those threats will not just be political, but in an important sense, also technological. Professor Lessig will describe this dynamic, and describe the emerging movement in the United States to address it

Details:

date: 30/04/2008
time: 6.30 pm

members: £35.25
non-members: £52.88

venue: Institution of Engineering and Technology, 2 Savoy Place, London, WC2R 0BL.

Register on the SCL site.

Information governance has rapidly become an integral part of organisational strategy in both the public and private sector. Organisations of all types and size are generating ever greater volumes of sensitive data and that data must be handled lawfully to avoid damaged reputations and unnecessary costs. Breaches of the law can result in enforcement notices, fines and even criminal convictions for directors and managers.

Full details on the SCL site

Speakers include:

Chair:
David Berry, Charles Russell LLP

Vincent Geake, Partnerships UK
Christopher Millard, Linklaters LLP
Tom Ilube, Garlik.
Stephen McCartney, Information Commissioner’s Office
Ellis Parry, AstraZeneca
Gillian Cordall, Maclay Murray & Spens LLP
Roger Bickerstaff, Bird & Bird
Andy Thomas, Garlik

Details

members: £264.38
non-members: £381.88

venue: Mayfair Conference Centre, 17 Connaught Place, Marble Arch, London, W2 2EL

The First COMMUNIA Conference 2008 is scheduled for Monday 30 June and Tuesday 1st July 2008 in Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium (30 km south of Brussels). It is co-organized by the Communia Thematic Network and the GICSI-EU initiative.

The main theme is the Assessment of economic and social impact of digital public domain throughout Europe.

The Conference aims at initiating a “stock taking exercise” of the impact of public domain initiatives in the fields of public sector information, libraries, archives, scientific research and creative works in Europe. The event is mainly aimed at promoting the public domain by building capacity for scientific assessment of social and economic impacts, and promoting analysis of legal impediments. The conference will draw upon the extensive information on open access practices that is available, although often in an informal manner, within major networks and stakeholders in Europe.

The following issues will be specifically addressed during the conference:

- What are the objectives of the open access commons?
- What are the existing legal, institutional and normative mechanisms that are adopted in different open access initiatives in the fields of public sector information, libraries, archives and creative works in Europe ?
- How to assess the economic and social impact of selected cases ?

We welcome papers submission particularly related to the following topics:

1. Libraries and archives
2. Public sector Information
3. Creative works
4. Scientific research
5. Publishing intermediaries
6. Emerging Issues

The aim of the call for papers is threefold:
1. to build a repertory about the usage of open access licenses (under different forms) in EU,
2. to evaluate social and economic benefits of open access initiatives, and
3. to discuss proposals for mitigating economic and legal obstacles.

Has there been a shift in political use of the internet and digital new media - a new web 2.0 politics based on participatory values? How do broader social, cultural, and economic shifts towards web 2.0 impact, if at all, on the contexts, the organizational structures, and the communication of politics and policy? Does web 2.0 hinder or help democratic citizenship? This conference provides an opportunity for researchers to share and debate perspectives.

It is a large event with over 40 panels and over 100 papers, with keynotes from:

• Helen Margetts, Professor of Internet and Society, University of Oxford:
  “Digital-era Governance: Peer production, Co-creation and the Future of
  Government.”
• Robin Mansell, Professor of New Media, LSE: “The Light and the Dark
  Sides of Web 2.0.”
• Rachel Gibson, Professor of Political Science, University of Manchester:
  “Trickle-up Politics?: the Impact of Web 2.0 Technologies on Citizen
  Participation.”
• Micah Sifry, Personal Democracy Forum/TechPresident: “The Revolution
  Will Be Networked: How Open Source Politics is Emerging in America.”
• Michael Turk, US National Cable & Telecommunications Association and
  e-campaign manager for Bush-Cheney 04: “Managed Chaos: Bringing Order to
  User-Generated Activism.”
• Stephen Coleman, Professor of Political Communication, University of
  Leeds: (title to be confirmed).

Registration for the conference and affordable accommodation is quick
and easy via our website, where you may also download the full
provisional programme:

http://newpolcom.rhul.ac.uk/politics-web-2-0-conference/

New Political Communication Unit, Department of Politics and International Relations, Royal Holloway, University of London, April 17-18, 2008.

The Internet’s current trajectory is one of lost opportunity. Its salvation lies in the hands of its millions of users. Drawing on generative technologies like Wikipedia that have so far survived their own successes, this book shows how to develop new technologies and social structures so users can participate in solutions, becoming true “netizens.” How can we achieve the wisdom of crowds instead of the madness of mobs?

Lecture II: Saving the Internet from Itself (Wednesday 5th March)
Time: 16:00-17:30
Venue: D.502 - Fifth Floor Clement House

The Internet is primed for a meltdown–and the most obvious cures are
just as bad.

The engine that has catapulted the Internet from backwater to ubiquity is sputtering precisely because of its runaway success. With the unwitting help of its users, the generative Internet is on a path to a lockdown, ending its cycle of innovation - and facilitating unsettling new kinds of control. iPods, iPhones, Xboxes, and Sky+ represent the first wave of Internet-centred products that can’t be easily modified by anyone but their vendors or selected partners. These “tethered appliances” have already been used in extraordinary but little-known ways: car GPS systems have been reconfigured at the demand of law enforcement to eavesdrop on the occupants at all times, and digital video recorders have been ordered to self-destruct thanks to a lawsuit against the manufacturer thousands of miles away. New Web 2.0 platforms like Google mash-ups and Facebook are rightly touted - but their applications can be similarly monitored and eliminated from a central source. As tethered appliances and applications eclipse the PC, the very nature of the Internet - its “generativity” - is at risk.

Lecture I: The End of the Internet (Tuesday 4th March)
Time: 17:00-18:30
Venue: D.202 - Second Floor Clement House (at LSE)