MONDAY'S MATTERS

1 Search me!

This morning the British Library became the UK’s premier resource for information on patents, innovation and intellectual property as the search facility of the UK Patent Office moves into the Library’s flagship building at St Pancras. The move brings together the Patent Office’s London search room and the resources of the British Library’s Business & Intellectual Property Centre.

This Centre already provides free access to the world’s largest collection of market research reports and a comprehensive range of online subscription databases and, by incorporating the resources of the Patent Office, it will offer researchers, SMEs and entrepreneurs an unrivalled one-stop-shop for the latest information on patents, markets, marketing and business.

SMEs, entrepreneurs and innovators will be able to conduct database searches on patents and designs. Users will have access to unique trade mark search files that are unavailable on the internet and can only be accessed at either the Business & Intellectual Property Centre or the Patent Office in Newport. These facilities are supplemented at St Pancras by what is claimed to be the world’s most comprehensive collection of patent specifications and literature on patents, trade marks, designs and copyright.

The IPKat is pleased to welcome this development, though he hopes that the non-searchability of some of the files on the internet is only a temporary state of affairs. Merpel adds cheerfully, if you get fed up with all the IP searching, you can get a great view of the trains ...

(St Pancras Station's Victorian Gothic splendour, right)

2 September MIP

The September issue of ten-times-a-year IP magazine Managing Intellectual Property has now been published. The cover story is a spirited piece by editor James Nurton on the impact of "arranged marriages" in the form of mergers and acqusitions on the corporate IP of the two marriage partners. Apart from that, there's also * An article by John Tessensohn and Shusaku Yamamoto on the Japanese Sumisho Electronics decision that ruled that a patentee could sue to restrain a patent infringement even if he had previously granted an exclusive licence under that patent;

* A review of US litigation on pop-up advertisements by White & Case partner Jonathan Moskin (right);

* A warning by BATmark general counsel Toe Su Aung that the graphic health warnings that have damaged brands in the tobacco industry may spread to other consumer goods sectors.

For a free trial of Managing Intellectual Property click here


3 INTA and Hurricane Katrina

The International Trademark Association, moved (as we have all been) by the dreadful events in New Orleans and elsewhere over the past week), has issued the following message:

The INTA community is saddened by the damage Hurricane Katrina has caused, which affected so many of our friends and neighbors. We offer our prayers for the victims and extend our deepest sympathy to their families and friends.

INTA has made a financial contribution on behalf of our global membership, and we all hope that this outpouring of support and compassion will help to limit the effects of a disaster that is far from over.

Words cannot alleviate the impact of such a terrible event, but it is gratifying to know that the giving, volunteer spirit of INTA’s members is being extended to the victims of the hurricane.

For more information on ways to help, please visit www.redcross.org.

The IPKat shares INTA's sentiments and hopes that the contributions of that organisation, and its members, will help to alleviate the suffering. But there is one thing further that must be said. Having just searched the INTA website for the word 'tsunami', he found no hits. He hopes that, for an international organisation with members based in well over a hundred countries, 'friends and neighbors' means people from all over the world as well as in the United States.