Friday feasibilities

This week there are several new events listed in the IPKat's superbly-updated 'Forthcoming Events' feature, which occupies a large slice of space on the left-hand side-bar of this weblog's front page. The number of events currently listed is 35. FREE events are listed in a cheerful blue.


The IPKat says thank you again to all his readers for giving him some more lovely news. Last week this weblog was visited by 23,807 casual visitors, the largest number that the Kats have ever received in a single week. It's always a pleasure to have you, says the IPKat. Especially if you remember to leave a cogent comment or two, adds Merpel. Miao, says Tufty.

Right: Miffy always worried that there wasn't enough room for visitors


Another blog that's feeling very chuffed is Class 46, the European trade mark blog, which is now up to its 400th email subscriber -- in fact, it has zoomed through the 400 barrier and is now up to 406. Members of the Class 46 blogging team are taking part in an international Rapid Response seminar on trade mark dilution which will be held just five days after the European Court of Justice gives its first and keenly-awaited ruling on dilution in Intel v CPM (or INTEL v INTELMARK, if you prefer). Details here, if you'd like to attend.


Yet another intellectual property weblog that's very happy is The SPC Blog, which is dedicated to patent extension issues. The SPC Blog has just signed up its 200th email subscriber -- not bad for a niche blog that only got going in June. The SPC Blog is already sponsoring an international conference and running a Simply Perfect Cocktail competition.


Enough of blogs for now. Back to the real world, starting with Georgia which, by UPOV Notification No. 106, the IPKat can tell you, has deposited its instrument of accession to the International Convention for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants as revised to 1991. The UPOV Convention enters force in Georgia on 29 November 2008.


Georgia's big neighbour Russia, meanwhile, has signed up to the WIPO Copyright Treaty and the WIPO Phonograms and Performances Treaty, both of 1996. The two treaties come into effect for the Russian Federation on 5 February 2009 (see notifications WCT No. 72 and WPPT No. 74).


First the good news -- leading IP journal Managing Intellectual Property is now available to read online at no cost. Then the bad news -- you won't be able to enoy it unless you can read Chinese. Click here for the free Chinese edition. This looks like a good initiative; let's see how it develops.


Among the IPKat's idle pleasures is the search for new forms of amusement. On this basis he can report that he has spent some pretty fruitful time looking for cat amusement patents via the Setrue Semantic Patent Search Engine. You can test it out yourself here. If you have any comments on it, do email them to Jacob Zoarets, of Transformer Software Ltd, who will be delighted to hear from you. Anything to do with semantic parsing and dynamic clusters, and Jacob's your man!