Friday frissons

Don't forget to check the IPKat's side bar. There are so many exciting events on offer. Some are free; some are discounted; some are not.

Around the blogs. Specialist copyright blog The 1709 Blog, launched this April, has now achieved its 200th email subscriber -- well done!And take a look at GlobalIPWatch, a cooperative venture concerning which Arif Mahmood has written:

"I was wondering if IPKat could help European students learn about unique opportunities with Global IPWatch.com. We are a non-commercial international electronic IP case law reporter and have law students from the US and Canada produce case summaries of notable IP decisions from both jurisdictions. While we cover some EU decisions at the moment we are trying to reach out to ambitious young IP professionals who want to volunteer as Associate Editors and contribute EU IP cases".

If you're volunteering, then email Arif here. Another blog that is crying out for attention is IP Finance, which last week notched up its 500th email subscriber. IP Finance is experimenting with regular themed features: one is Louise O'Callaghan's Tuesday Articles on IP insolvency, which has now been running for five weeks (details are available in the side-bar); the other is Neil Wilkof's posts on the drafting of IP licensing contracts -- the first two of which are here and here.

Good news if you're one of the young IP enthusiasts who either attended the Intellectual Property Institute's informal (pay-for-your-own-drinks) session at The Old Nick last year or who contacted the IPI to say you'd like to keep in touch. There are two forthcoming events in the pipeline. One is a "show and tell" social, to be hosted by Wedlake Bell: turn up and be sure to bring an item of IP interest, so we can all discuss it over a refreshing drink or two. The other is a chat with IP Minister David Lammy MP, who has kindly agreed to join us -- again at The Old Nick -- for a strictly off-the-record chat about IP and what it feels like to be making one's career in that sector. Dates and further details to be supplied in due course.

Several good souls have taken the trouble to inform the IPKat of a patent, US 5255452, issued to the late Michael Jackson. This was for a "method and means of creating anti-gravity illusion". The IPKat doesn't want to speak ill of the dead, but he has a long memory and wonders whether the equally late but prior in time Roy Castle performed a similar illusion using a similar device back in the 1960s, in the days of black-and-white telly.

The Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys (CIPA) in the UK has had a big week. On Wednesday it launched the latest supplement to its must-read/steal Guide to the Patents Acts (details here).

Left: a patent attorney, unable to bear the new burden of regulatory review, decides to chuck it in and get a job for life with a decent pension ... in the civil service

Then it publishes, for a most reasonable £25, the 9th edition of Doug Ealey's Study Guide to the Patents Acts (details here: review to follow). Then it gets maligned by the formerly friendly Intellectual Property Office. Who said that being a patent attorney was boring!

The IPKat's friend and 1709 Blog colleague Hugo Cox is currently looking for a fresh challenge. If you've got one, click here for further information and contact details.

Right: a dogged character looking for a fresh challenge ...

Events in the forthcoming week include the seminar led by Cambridge IP buff Dr Patricia Akester entitled "The Impact of DRM on Access to Exceptions: First Empirical Assessment". This is another excellent Intellectual Property Institute event. Please don't let the fact that it clashes with the second week of the Wimbledon tennis tournament distract you -- if you like an ace, then Dr A is the person for you. Details here.

Fending off allegations that he himself is biased, the judge in the proceedings to establish whether the Swedish Pirate Bay judge was biased has concluded that he was not and that, accordingly, the Pirate Bay Four were properly convicted of criminal copyright infringement (see earlier posts here and here). Reports on these latest proceedings can be read on The Register, Reuters and Ars technica.