FRIDAY FARE

1 The Kitty salutes St Kitts

WIPO has solemnly informed the IPKat that the Caribbean island state of St Kitts & Nevis (country code KN) has become the 128th nation to sign up for the Patent Cooperation Treaty. The PCT goes live in St Kitts on 27 October 2005.


2 Boring, boring cliche

This morning's post brought the IPKat a brochure announcing "The marketplace for ideas", the Brand Licensing 2005 event held on 25-26 October at Earls Court 2, London. To his intense disappointment, the notion of "ideas" was illustrated by that most tired of visual cliches, yet another light bulb. Light bulbs, together with press items entitled "What's in a Name?", are among the IPKat's pet hates. Merpel adds, come on, you've got more pet hates than that ...


3 Copyright World

The July/August issue of Copyright World, published six times a year by Informa, has some good stuff in it. For example

* Freshfields' Xavier Buffet Delmas d'Autane and Amandine Doat consider the difficulties faced in France when determining the balance between allowing private copying and protecting technological protection measures;

* Gillian Cordall (Lewis Silkin) reflects on character creation mechanisms in online gaming (something the IPKat hasn't read about before);

* Daniel S. Drapeau (Ogilvy Renault, Montreal) explains the Quebec Court of Appeal decision in Greenberg Stores v Import-Export Rene Derhy and describes it as a principled blow against counterfeiting.