Want to know the future of design? Come to Jesus!

Thanks to Sarah Burstein (herself a worthy participant) I have learned about a very exciting conference, "The Future of Design Protection", this being a collaborative venture between the Center for Intellectual Property Research of the Indiana University Maurer School of Law and the Oxford Intellectual Property Research Centre, University of Oxford.

The conference takes place in the Ship Street Centre, Jesus College, Oxford, from 2 to 3 November and features a veritable who's who of distinguished scholars, practitioners and commentators -- including several members of the Class 99 blog team. According to the event's promotional material,

"Design protection is once again at the forefront of intellectual property debates. The ongoing smartphone litigation around the world highlights how valuable design protection can be. In the United States, the Federal Circuit reinvigorated design patent protection in Egyptian Goddess. In the European Union, the Court of Justice is now beginning to hand down decisions on the regime put in place a decade ago and administered by OHIM. The UK Government is presently conducting a consultation on reform of design law. And Japan and China have shown increased interest in the operation of design protection in a wide range of economic sectors. Now is an especially propitious time to consider the future of design protection. This conference will bring together the world’s most recognized scholars, practitioners, judges, industry representatives and government officials involved in all aspects of design protection law, including scholars from the U.S., Europe, Japan, and China.

Proceedings of the Oxford conference will be published in IP Theory, the online, peer-edited scholarly journal of the Center for Intellectual Property Research".

Full details of the programme are available online here.