All to play for: CIPA congress

In what way is intellectual property law like soccer? That provided an overarching theme for the 2012 Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys (CIPA) Congress, which took place at the Lancaster London Hotel on October 11 and 12. Some speakers took the theme literally (courts are referees, patentees are defenders, the goal is a victory in court or at a patent office, etc), but most elected to use it more as a guide to the tenor of their talks.