
Full details of the competition here. Send your entries here. Copying Without Infringing conference details here.

The IPKat received a letter today from an outfit calling itself Domain Registry of America (DROA), headed "Domain Name Expiration Notice", making it look as though he had to fill in the form and pay his money over to these people if he wanted to keep the www.ipkat.com domain name. He has never heard of the DROA and is not best pleased with this sort of activity which, he learns, is called domain slamming. A little swift research has revealed that DROA is not the only business that does this sort of thing. Says Merpel, click here, here, here and here before responding to any suspicious-looking renewal notices.
Left: where the IPKat proposes to file correspondence from DROA

"... represents over 100 non-governmental and other not-for-profit organisations interested in protection the intellectual property of all europeans" (sic).The website adds:
"The European Intellectual Property Association (EIPAWEB) INCLUDES MORE THAN 300 PROGRAMS, covering a wide spectrum of activities".It may just be a consequence of his ignorance, but IPKat team blogger Jeremy has been active in IP circles since 1973 and has yet to hear of this organisation. A Google Search for "European Intellectual Property Association" this morning threw up a paltry 121 hits, most of which were links from other websites. In fact, there seems to be something of a cottage industry consisting of grandly named websites that serve no purpose other than to link to each other's sites. The IPKat has written to EIPAWEB to ask it for the names of its 100+ NGO and not-for-profit organisations and for details of its 300+ programs. Meanwhile, if any reader can shed any useful information about this curious body, the IPKat (who can be emailed here) will be delighted to know.

In contrast, please see A-Bomb, A-Team
Correct use of hyphens here and here

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We also got a "link exchange" request from this "European Intellectual Property Association". They seem to be completely bogus to me.
ReplyDeleteJust compare the list of questions (and the individual answers) on their front page to the the UK government's IP FAQ. Since the latter site will apparently close down on 2 April, I guess our new friends are merely providing a service and not blatantly ripping off some other site's contents without even attributing.
BTW, if you look at the registration info of that domain and google for the registrant's name ("Nichifor Valentin"), you find some pretty interesting information. Seems like a pretty busy chap...
ReplyDeleteOf course, it might merely be an alias of Simon Gentry :)