Blogs and blogging

The 5th Annual "Meet the Bloggers" event, masterminded this year by Seattle Trademark Lawyer's Michael Atkins, takes place on Monday 18 May 2009 at the new time of 6pm to 9pm at Pier 70 (right), on Seattle's lovely waterfront (details here). "Meet the Bloggers" -- which coincides annually with the International Trademark Association's Meeting -- is open to everyone who writes or reads intellectual property blogs. If you need any more information about this year's event, email Mike.  Last year's session in Berlin was great fun and this year's should be too. See you there?


The Afro IP intellectual property blog, which tries its hardest to scrape together interesting bits of news and comment from one end of Africa to the other, has finally notched up two milestones: its 500th article was posted earlier this week and the blog has also picked up its 200th email subscriber. The blog team, ably led by Darren Olivier, is always on the look-out for IP news, views and information -- and is willing to publish it in French or any other widely-understood language as well as in English. You can view Afro-IP here.


Another blog to hit the 200 email subscriber mark is PatLit, the patent litigation weblog. Since dispute resolution involving patents is an increasingly international phenomenon, the team welcomes short newsy items, preferably linked to reliable sources, from patent litigators, mediators and arbitrators wherever they are based.


Multilingual Latin-American weblog IP Tango has shaken up its writing team but would like to hear from readers (ideally from that area) who are involved in Latin American IP and would like to write the occasion piece for this growing weblog.  If you're interested, email Aurelio here and tell him the IPKat sent you. You can see IP Tango for yourself here.

Congratulations to all the patent blogs listed in the Top Twenty Five Patent Blogs compiled by IP Watchdog.  PatLit -- which had only just launched when the list was compiled -- plans to be there next year. 


Launched only last week, Fashionista-at-law has already sailed past the 100 subscriber mark. Well done! This blog has the advantage of not being tied exclusively to IP subject matter, since it covers all legal topics that concern the fashion industries (the effects of the credit crunch being among them).


Finally an apology: the IPKat forgot to mention that the Datonomy data protection weblog passed its 50 subscriber mark a couple of weeks ago. Data protection is now very much a stand-alone IT/regulatory sort of subject these days, but team blogger lovingly recalls its early days in the 1980s, when it was still viewed (at least by many IP lawyers) as a real IP subject, a sort of next-door neighbour to breach of confidence.