Monday, May 21, 2007

Blogging Chaps

I met a lawyer today from the Midlands region of England named Andrew Mills. He's the partner in charge of IP and Tech at a 65 partner firm (500 lawyers) named Freeth Cartwright based in Nottingham. Andrew had a bit of free time today in New York city, so he hopped on the internet to see if he could meet a fellow legal blogger. I had a spot open just before lunch, so Andrew and I got to meet.

We talked about copyright, trademarks and how the U.S. and British regimes varied. Andrew knew a few tricks about how U.S. trademark owners could improve their trademark registration portfolios and I think I shared a few strategies involving cease and desist letters in the U.S. that were interesting to him. He told me that in the past five years British litigation has died down quite a bit due to prelitigation mediation and pre-filing communication rules.

I am hoping to follow up on Andrew's visit with a visit of my own to Nottingham. Andrew says it's about 2.5 hours north of London. Check out Andrew's blog, http://impact.freethcartwright.com/. It's an interesting admixture of news, parliamentary debates, and other good ip fun.

Andrew is coming out with a book this fall, so keep an eye out for it!

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