Friday fineries

It's surprising how quickly Friday comes round again -- and with it the golden opportunity to check on all those exciting forthcoming IP events that are listed in the sidebar.


A WIPO press release informs the Kats that Thailand has deposited an instrument of accession to the Patent Cooperation Treaty, which will enter into force for that country on 24 December 2009. The IPKat's old friend Francis Gurry, whose day job is boss of WIPO, welcomed Thailand’s accession to the PCT which he said was “an extremely important step” that helps make the treaty a “more global and attractive system.” The IPKat agrees.

Class 99, the design law blog, is looking for illustrations of the original and allegedly infringing items relating to the current design infringement and logo-lifting dispute between British fashion retailers Next and giant supermarket and online service provider Tesco. If you can help, that would be great!


Around the weblogs: Richard Cauley has resumed his Art of IP War blog (born 2005; briefly flourished during 2006 and now bubbling with life again). A beautiful new blog (in French) has been launched by law firm Dreyfus: it's called Dreyfus.blog and you can savour its Gallic elegance here. Email subscriptions for European trade mark blog Class 46, newly adopted by MARQUES, have now reached -- and indeed surpassed -- the 800 mark. In India, it's all-change at Spicy IP, where Shamnad Basheer and Mihir Naniwadekar have both stepped down from the subcontinent's best-known source of contemporary IP law and opinion [though today's evidence is that Shamnad at least is continuing to post blog articles]. And finally, after six years of toil, this weblog's co-founder Ilanah Simon Fhima is stepping down. The team thanks her sincerely for all her efforts and wishes her well in all her future ventures.

The IPKat's friend Naoise Gaffney writes to inform him as follows:

"As someone who is sitting the CIPA Infringement & Validity paper (P6 to those of us having the misfortune to be sitting it) for the first time this year, I'd like to recommend that Nigel Frankland's 70-page guide to passing the exam be more widely publicised. I had the luck to be in one of Nigel's P6 tutorials recently and, in speaking to him after the event, suggested that he might ask the IPKat to spread the word. Nigel feels that it's about time someone put together a guide for this exam, and as someone who had the benefit of Doug Ealey's guide to P2 last year, I'd be inclined to agree.

One wonders whether the fact that 66.5% of candidates passed P2 in 2008 (the highest pass rate in 9 years - and 7% more than the second-highest pass rate in this time) has any relation to the fact that this was also the first year Doug's book was available. It certainly would help to circulate any material available for the P6 exam which has a 9-year pass rate average languishing at ~43/44%".

The IPKat used to love exams, since he always reckoned that (i) anyone who had done more work than him had probably over-revised, (ii) anyone who had done less was underprepared and (iii) exams brought everyone else down to his own level. But that was a while ago and things are more systematic now. If you'd like further information, just click here and here.


The IPKat's friend, fellow blogger and long-distance runner Peter Groves writes, by-the-by:

"Have you seen the free IP resources on Insite Law Magazine, which I am contributing? I hope that they will be of use to newcomers to the field. I had an old textbook which just needed updating, and online publication is a nice way to recycle it (plus, it generates advertising revenue)".

Peter also welcomes constructive criticism, as do we all when asked in public ...

Expert system: Australian IP enthusiast Michael Bates excitedly tells the IPKat what he's been up to:

"Recently we have placed an Expert System on to our website here to help anyone who need help with IP issues. This system is still in its early stages; however, I would like to open it up to invite other attorneys/lawyers in the IP community (other than Australia) to place their questions and answers on to the Expert System so that it covers all jurisdictions.

We are happy to refer users to the firm (& of course acknowledge) which drafted the interview information for/and had had it placed on to the expert system (I will put it into the expert system). This referral would be at the base end of each interview.

We have added a second website for users here, in case the number of users increases (as it already has)".

The IPKat says, give it a try!