The IPKat's blogs attract very few posted comments, but he receives a lot of emails from people who don't want their comments to be attributed to them. One such interesting email (which has been anonymised for obvious reasons) is reproduced below. The author works for OHIM, the Community Trade Mark Office and Design Registry. His letter reads:
Can any IPKat reader who feels an OHIM Board of Appeal decision has been wrongly suppressed please let him know by email?
Search for OHIM Board of Appeal decisions here; Opposition Division decisions here; Cancellation Division decisions here; Community Design decisions here (note that only three of the 10 decisions listed here on 29 September were available in English).
"Hi,The IPKat has long been annoyed at the fact that many OHIM Board of Appeal and Opposition decisions are not posted on the OHIM website in English. Indeed, he has put his paw into his purse and paid a few deserving postgraduate students to translate them for him. Now he knows that Board of Appeal decisions are routinely translated but suppressed, he will be very much on his guard in future.
Since I discovered IPkat I very much enjoy reading it.
[...] One of your favorite issues is the problem of languages of CFI/ECJ cases. But you never mention BoA language problems. Did you know that all non-English language decisions of the Boards are internally translated into English? However, they are not published on OHIM's website. I suppose they are not published for political reasons (discrimination of other languages), which is nevertheless a pity. Maybe users should complain from time to time? [...]".
Can any IPKat reader who feels an OHIM Board of Appeal decision has been wrongly suppressed please let him know by email?
Search for OHIM Board of Appeal decisions here; Opposition Division decisions here; Cancellation Division decisions here; Community Design decisions here (note that only three of the 10 decisions listed here on 29 September were available in English).
IS OHIM DELIBERATELY SUPPRESSING ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS OF BOARD OF APPEAL DECISIONS?
![IS OHIM DELIBERATELY SUPPRESSING ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS OF BOARD OF APPEAL DECISIONS?]()
Reviewed by Jeremy
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Wednesday, September 29, 2004
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This is outrageous. I recommend IPKat sends OHIM a strongly worded letter!
ReplyDeleteNever mind writing a letter, what we need is some sort of cyber-flashmobbing. At a fixed time, say noon on the first Monday of each month, everyone who is fed up with OHIM's (and/or the ECJ's) failure to provide adequate translations into other EU languages should send an angry email to whoever is the proper recipient of such complaints. That way, perhaps we can all make our feelings more powerfully felt.
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