I must confess that prior to Rob Litowitz's highly engaging presentation I had given (at best) limited consideration to the concept of 'floating brands', but I have now been duly educated and I find myself far more sensitive to their use by innovative brand owners! A 'fluid brand' goes beyond the normal evolution of a brand and is best exemplified by the 'Google Doodles'. Fluid brands are used to good effect in vastly different areas of commerce including technology, drinks manufacturers and retailers. Clearly brand owners must be mindful to avoid abandonment, but the examples provided demonstrated how effective use of fluid brands can be. Their popularity with brand managers is unlikely to wane and this is an area of brand protection that we as attorneys need to embrace. Rob Litowitz criminal offence in as many countries as possible. Perhaps our lack of awareness stems from the fact that the convention is not based upon existing IP laws (to the extent that the definition of 'counterfeit' is subtly different) and shifts the basis for action away from IPRs to product safety. It is not yet in force and there seems a frustratingly long way to go before all 28 Member States of the EU ratify the Convention; but we were urged to encourage our Governments to make progress and in this respect the Pharma industry will play a key role! The presentation created considerable discussion, particularly by way of comparison with and the lessons to be learned from ACTA. To conclude, the presentations were excellent, without exception, tackling varied and often complex subject matters and making them understandable and relevant. I recommend accessing the presentation slides whilst they remain available and, as always, look forward to the next conference to be held in Venice in March 2015. The Gala dinner, held at the Museum of Science and Industry, was a great venue to end the conference in style. Many delegates took the opportunity to visit the exhibitions which were open for our visit, the most spectacular of which was a U-505 submarine. Bruce Longbottom Fittingly the final presentation of the conference focused on the USA and the continuing fight against counterfeits. During his presentation Bruce Longbottom introduced the DQSA, ASOP and CSIP to the audience, in the process neatly echoing some of the issues that had been identified in earlier presentations. Statistics concerning the online market for counterfeit goods continue to stagger me, as do the examples of sophisticated online marketing of counterfeit products, which demonstrate how easy it must be for the consumer to feel confident that they are purchasing goods from a reputable regulated vendor. Whilst Government enforcement agencies have imposed huge fines upon third parties such as Google and UPS, given the value of the business generated by illicit online pharmacies, it is clear that those fines will need to be even greater in size if they are to have a meaningful effect on the counterfeit drugs market. This is another topic on which I look forward to receiving updates at future conferences. 10 Sophie Bodet presents The Founder’s Lecture Award to Christopher Hanes on the morning of Day 1 At the beginning of her presentation, having polled the delegates, Toe Su Aung expressed surprise at our lack of awareness of The Medicrime Convention and proceeded, very successfully, to rectify the situation. The Convention seeks to provide a legal framework to make the counterfeiting of medicines (whether protected by IPRs or not) a Toe Su Aung PTMG 90th Conference 23rd-24th March 2015 Registration will open on PTMG website in mid January 2015 Venice