An email has been sent today by the UK's Intellectual Property Office to an circular list named as "Policy". It reads as follows [with my comments in red]:
"UNCITRAL - Security Interests Working GroupI'm going to be effectively out of action between 8 April and 17 April, but I do hope that readers of this blog will be able to coordinate some sort of response. Can I suggest that readers who want to be involved, but who have not yet identified themselves, should post their names and email addresses as contacts below this post, so that someone can contact them or they can at least contact one another.
Dear Interest [am I alone in not liking to be called 'Interest'?],
A working group of The United Nations Commission on Trade Law (UNCITRAL) was established in 2002 to develop "an efficient legal regime for security rights in goods involved in a commercial activity". The Commission subsequently noted that intellectual property rights were increasingly becoming an extremely important source of credit and should not be excluded from a modern secured transactions law. The Working Group on Security Interests has held a number of sessions to discuss the issue [one of which resulted in the establishment of this weblog] and is developing an Annex to the UNCITRAL Legislative Guide on Secured Transactions dealing with security rights in intellectual property [an internal search of this blog will reveal numerous items and documents related to this initiative]. The Annex will discuss how the principles of the Guide apply where the encumbered asset consists of an intellectual property right. The latest draft to be discussed at the next Session beginning on 27th April 2009 in New York can be found here. [No it can't. Readers have complained that this link doesn't work. All the papers relating to the IP Annex to the Guide seem to be available here]
If you would like to comment on the draft Annex before the 15th session or require further information, please e-mail policy@ipo.gov.uk no later than Friday 17th April [this means just 14 days, inclusive of two weekends one of which is a major holiday, to get one's head round the complex issues and then articulate some sort of response; not much time, is it?]."
