Friday favourites

As ever, the IPKat reminds readers to check the Forthcoming Events side bar, which is positively encrusted with gems: conferences, courses, seminars, lectures -- all for your edification.


Doing well! The IPKat has heard from the organisers of this year's Handbags at Dawn event, the Annual Intellectual Property and Fashion Conference, in London on 22 September, that early bookings have been strong and a good crowd is expected. IPKat team blogger Jeremy is in the chair and this year, for the first time, the conference is sponsored by Fashionista at Law. Although the event is affectionately nicknamed 'Handbags at Dawn', it covers more than just handbags -- though the handbag has been a much-coveted and much-litigated accessory in recent times (see eg the Birkin bag here and here, Freitag bag, Spongebob Vadobag ...)

Around the blogosphere. The SPC Blog, that quirky little niche blog devoted to the extension of pharma and agrochemical patents, has now brought out its own sequel, SPC 2, or Son of SPC. Well, actually it's not quite like that, but the SPC Blog now has a separate Resources Blog, which is proving popular with, among others, students writing dissertations and who like to have their legal materials accessible in a single location. Take a look, and if you find (or rather, don't find) something which should be there but is missing, please email Jeremy here and let him know.

This is a bit of a quiet time for IP blogs, so there's not much else to report. The European trade mark blog Class 46 has decided to flag its posts via Twitter: you can find Class 46 on Twitter here. Oh, and don't confuse Class 46 with Class 99 -- a blog for design law in Europe which is masterminded by the IPKat's friend David Musker. Good luck, David and your team!

Thanks are due to ...

* Matt Garner (Boult Wade Tennant) for this link to an explanation as to why apes ape and don't invent;

* Iain Stansfield (Olswang) for drawing the Kats' attention to a curious experiment in de-branding by Starbucks;

Right: 'Thank You' Bagpuss, available from Collectables Ltd

* Miri Frankel (Beanstalk), for picking up on how George Orwell suddenly became a non-person, or at any rate a non-author, on Kindle (another of the IPKat's old friends, Hector MacQueen, supplied information on this topic leading to this piece on the 1709 Blog). Miri also sent the Kats a link to an article with one of the year's most unexpected headlines: "Music Industry Lures 'Casual Pirates' to Legal Sites";

* Reg Rea and the lads/lasses in Alicante, for sending the Kats the latest issue of Alicante News, with its special focus on Community trade mark and design practice in Hungary.