Friday flippancy

If you don't like the seedy practice of domain tasting and think it should be curbed, did you know that ICANN's Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO) is soliciting comments on its draft resolution on this very topic. If you care enough to vent your feelings, you've only got until 28 March to vent your spleen. For more information click here.


Back in January the IPKat posted this item on the revocation of DSS's French patent, this being part of an ongoing dispute as to whether the European Central Bank infringed DSS's anti-forgery technology. This item gave a link to the judgment of the Tribunal de Grande Instance in Paris on 9 January 2008. Alas, the link doesn't work any more. Does any reader have a link that he or she could kindly post as a comment below?


IP-Lite is the name of a new intellectual property blog, powered by the IPKat's friend and SOLO IP team member, London solicitor Shireen Smith (Azrights). You can visit it here. Good luck, Shireen!


Another new-ish IP weblog that the IPKat has just discovered is IP Kenya, masterminded by David Njuguna, a patent examiner at the Kenya Industrial Property Institute. David's interests extend well beyond the borders of Kenya (his most recent post deals with IP training for members of parliament in Rwanda) and he knows a thing or two about the battle in his own country to monopolise the colours of local bus service. David will be guesting from time to time on the Afro-IP team blog which is led by Darren Olivier.


If education's your thing, then let the IPKat tell you about two new Masters programmes for IP in Maastricht, which (says the Kat's friend, Anselm Kamperman Sanders) will raise the bar for English language IP education in the Benelux and the German border region. For the launch of the masters, the University of Maastricht's Faculty of Law and the Stockholm Network have organised a conference for 15 April 2008: “The Process and Impact of the of the WHO Intergovernmental Working Group (IGWG) on Public Health, Innovation and Intellectual Property”. The Stockholm Network has pledged its support to the new Maastricht IP Masters programme by awarding three grants of US$9,000 each (three more are destined for QMIPRI). Anyone wanting more details should contact Anselm directly here [Merpel says, these are really Maasters programmes ...].