THESIS COMPLETE

BOLOGNA - there we go. It's done. Tonight I'll be done with the final version of my thesis. It's been fun and stressful, kind of an alienating thing to do but intriguing. I eventually took a short week off in Munich to do some extra research at the Max Planck Institut for IP where I found an overwelming amount of material and met interesting people from around Europe on their 4-year doctorate. It's just a good feeling to drink a 'moccacino' from a brown plastic cup at the vending machine with someone who comes up to you interested in what you are writing and exchanging points of view and ideas. In particular I met a student who is writing in Chinese anti monopoly law and we found the present Chinese legal system in commercial and industrial law to be massivly improving.

I myself, writing the paper, was surprised to read of how much effort the chinese put since the late '70s; the Implementing Regulations are an example, the WTO accession in 2001, the rising number of settled cases favouring not only liberal grounds for IPR development but also the Chinese themselves. Despite all the progress, there will still be tough times ahead because of the traditional view of property rights and recognition of invention and creation amongs Chinese - one of the biggest and most crucial aspects of conflicting cases between China and "the West".  

I just made a small 'wordle' of my thesis, here, in the picture. I would use it as the front cover to my thesis if I was allowed to!! The D-day (dissertation day) will be somewhere in the week between the 23rd and 27th of March and will give a toast to whatever we'll think of, in a very special venue in Bologna. It's meant to be a surprise so I won't spoil it!

I've been looking into jobs in China for a pretty long time and especially internships are intriguing amongs international organizations, chambers of commerce or law firms. 

2009 isn't only the century's financial abysmal nadir because of the crisis but it also is the bull's year, (or, the "niu"牛 "new" year, funny eh?) or the ox' year: it's heavy but if you find out how to guide it, it might pull us all out of the crisis. The ox must be a positive-thinking one, not only a knowledgeable cow but determined and sturdy one, too. Not a Milka cow but definitely a special one.