Friday forever!

It's almost everyone's favourite day of the week, time to check out the IPKat's ever-growing list of forthcoming events in the left-hand side bar of his weblog. There's so much on offer -- and it's so much fun!


Last week IPKat team member Jeremy participated in a seminar at the ONO Academic College, Israel, on the ownership and management issues relating to patents resulting from enployee inventions. The organiser of the event, fellow blogger and local patent attorney Michael Factor (The IP Factor), has produced and posted a report on the event, purportedly written by the 'IsraKat', which you can read here. It was only from reading this report that the IPKat discovered that pralines were available in the coffee break, because by the time he'd finished answering questions and reached the coffee, none were in evidence. If he should ever speak there again, pralines will be written into the contract ...


In its post entitled "Patents, Pirates and Programs" yesterday the PatLit weblog wondered (here) which European jurisdictions were the most/least hostile to software patents -- an important issue for bodies such as the Pirate Party to consider if seeking to challenge their validity through amicus brief or other interventions. If you have any thoughts re best or worst places for upholding the validity of such patents, do feel free to visit that blog and append a comment. Responses -- if there are enough to make it worthwhile -- will be tabulated for the blog's readers.


Dilbert has been much in discussion this week, following Wednesday's posting on this blog of "Not enough to make a Kat laugh ..." here. There are three matters arising from that post. First, the IPKat has received some correspondence on the question of Catbert's status; his personal opinion is that, while Catbert (right) may be a cat, he's certainly not a Kat. Secondly, the poll relating to the Dilbert cartoon in question remains open for just another nine days, so please be sure to vote. Thirdly, the Kat would like to draw your attention to the anonymous posting of the Hemi Patent Sketch which, in the Kat's humble opinion, is a truly magnificent parody of the Monty Python sketch on which it is based. The easiest way to appreciate this masterpiece is to read it on PatLit here.

Around the other blogs. Both Fashionista-at-law and Afro-IP have either reached the 300 subscriber mark, or are so close as to make no difference. Well done, both blogging teams! And (relatively) new kid on the block Class 99 -- the design law blog -- has finally got itself an email subscription facility, so you don't need to keep wondering whether anything new has been posted or fretting about the efficiency of your RSS feed.


The IPKat's sure this is not deliberate, but FreePatentsOnline ("All the inventions of mankind") has found a wonderful way to alienate non-Americans. If you want to know where the world's inventions come from, just click Local Patents here and navigate to the country of your choice ...