Friday fizzle

As the autumn conference and seminar season looms large, there are even more events lined up than usual. Please remember to check them out on the IPKat's side bar! Some are free, some are fun, some are boringly essential ...

Around the blogs. Every day, it seems, more exciting developments are taking place in India. Now the IPKat has learned that Rodney D Ryder and Ashwin Madhavan have started a legal media website called Law Wire, about which they modestly say:

"Law Wire is a comprehensive legal media platform, which focuses on providing an in depth coverage, on the ever changing corporate legal sector in India and the world. The legal industry in India suffers from isolated pockets of legal communities which lack visibility of various key commercial legal issues. Law Wire bridges the gap between legal knowledge on one hand and the legal policy making communities on the other, through its print and electronic media".

Do check it out! Elsewhere on the IP blogosphere the main news has been the decision of Larry Lessig to give his hugely influential copyright blog a sabbatical (noted here on the 1709 Blog) and the capture by European trade mark blog Class 46 of its 750th email subscriber.

Wanted! The IPKat is looking for someone to get involved in an exciting project. The person he seeks must be (i) familiar with intellectual property rights -- particularly copyrights and patents; (ii) highly literate and able to write well for a wide readership that goes much further than lawyers and business players; (iii) a good researcher; (iv) able to work in at least one other major European language; (v) free to work for around one-two days a week for a period of around six to nine months; (vi) able to wait till the project is completed before receiving any remuneration. If you think you might be that person, please email the IPKat here, with the word "IP Writer" in the subject line of your email -- and please attach a short CV and one sample of your best writing.

Thank you, Mark Cruickshank (Maclay Murray & Spens) for this link to the strongest evidence yet that the Swedes and the Scots do not share a common sense of humour. The joke, according to small Scottish trader Olympian Furniture, involved the use of the phrase "IKANA believe how good this summer sale is" [IPKat note for non-Scottish readers: "IKANA" is an approximation of the way many consumers in Scotland pronounce the phrase "I cannot"] with the writing in yellow on a blue background – the colours used by Ikea.

Right: the Ikea BÄSTIS cat tent

According to a spokesman for Olympian, "Our promotion is liked by our customers, who understand the humour" and anyway no-one would be confused. Whether Ikea's customers understand the humour is unknown, but Ikea's lawyers -- if they see the joke -- are not likely to be seen laughing when their clients are contemplating an action for trade mark infringement.