No riddles or ambiguities

Abstract

This section is dedicated to the review of ideas, articles, books, films and other media. It will include replies (and rejoinders) to articles, the evaluation of new ideas or proposals, and reviews of books and articles both directly and indirectly related to intellectual property law. There are some books everyone seems to own. The UK trade mark practitioners Amanda Michaels's and Andrew Norris's Practical Approach to Trade Mark Law certainly belongs to this category. Already in its fifth edition, the book offers 496 pages of UK (and EU) trade mark law and passing off for the interested reader's continued appreciation. Indeed, such is the ubiquity of this well-established textbook that most owners of its previous editions will not ask whether they should buy the next edition but merely wonder when it is going to be published. Written by two seasoned and well-known practitioners, this has always been a book for practitioners: Amanda Michaels, a barrister and an Appointed Person at the UK Intellectual Property Office (UKIPO), is known for, among other things, her trade mark expertise. Andrew Norris is a barrister and a law tutor. The authors have changed neither their winning format nor their concise and non-pompous writing style. There are ‘no riddles or ambiguities’ as Robin Jacob puts it in the book's foreword. Even though the 5th edition appears at first glance to be somewhat more voluminous than the 4th edition, the page count has only increased by about 30 pages overall. It is obvious that the authors have tried to keep the book as compact and digestible as possible—and they have been successful.