THIS CASE COULD DRAG-ON AND ON ...; LATEST IPQ

This case could drag-on and on...

Right: sun-dried dragon is popular with consumers, but turning it into sausages can be tricky

This delicious snippet comes from BBC Wales via Simon Haslam. Apparently Black Mountains Smokery, a food company based in Powys, has been warned it could face legal action over the name of its Welsh Dragon Sausages. Trading standards officials are anxious that consumers may be confused since the sausages contain pork rather than dragon. Says Jon Carthew, for the company:

"I don't think any of our customers actually believe that we use dragon meat in our sausages. We use the word because the dragon is synonymous with Wales and I think everyone who buys from us knows that".

Left: they had to stop advertising giant sausages, in case anyone thought they were made of giants ...

Trading Standards defend their action on the ground that they would not want vegetarians to buy the product by mistake, thinking they were meat-free. The word "pork" apparently features on the list of ingredients, but this may not provide sufficient guidance for simple-minded consumers.

Recipes here for Flaming Dragon, Blue Dragon and Popcorn Dragon
Green dragon bonsai here
Dragonfly stew here (strong stomachs only)


Latest IPQ

The fourth and final issue of Sweet & Maxwell's Intellectual Property Quarterly appears this week. No Welsh dragons in this issue, but don't forget that the editor bears the proud name of Llewelyn ...

Features in this issue include a fascinating piece by Oleksandr Pastukhov (Catholic University of Leuven) on the possibilities for both the legitimate and illegitimate use of internationalised domain names employing Arabic, Cyrillic and other alphabets. There's also a splendid account by the University of East Anglia's Chris Wadlow of the late, lamented British Empire Patent, which cast a faded shadow across the first two decades of the late and increasingly unlamented twentieth century. There's even something that looks suspiciously like genuine contemporary research by Yoav Mazeh and Mark Rogers on the economic significance of copyright, focusing on a series of copyright disputes that reached the law reports - definitely worth a read.