Wednesday whimsies

Official Proclamation: for the sake of consistency and the avoidance of confusion, the IPKat and Merpel do hereby decree that the round-up features that appear on this weblog on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays shall henceforth be known and described as 'Monday Miscellany', 'Wednesday Whimsies' and 'Friday Fantasies' respectively. Until they next either forget or change their minds, that is ...


Only six days to go till this year's Copying Without Infringing conference (click here for details). IPKat team member Jeremy is in the chair and there are some star performers on offer. If you've never been to one of these events before, do give it a try: the mixture of up-to-date information, stimulating speakers, enthusiastic debate and a decent lunch have proved very popular on previous occasions and organisers CLT look forward to doing the same again.

The IPKat solemnly thanks his good friend Ruth Soetendorp for drawing his attention to this article, written by the comedian Dave Schneider in last weekend's Sunday Times on the subject of Joke Theft. Some examples of stolen humour appear here [IPKat Advisory: not all these jokes are suitable for sensitive readers; Merpel Advisory: not all these jokes are funny ...]. On a more serious note, Ruth wonders what the test of theft/infringement is. Good point: does one indulge in a side-by-side review? A global comparison, perhaps? Or does one ask if the later joke takes the pith and marrow of the earlier one?

The IPKat's datonomite friend Rosie Burbidge informs him that the appeal for cookie recipes for the Datonomy data protection weblog is progressing nicely. Recipes are arriving from locations as disparate as Anglesey and Australia: the total received so far is 9. If you'd like to have your cookie considered for inclusion in the Datonomy Cookie Cookbook, please email Rosie here.

Though he doesn't often post items from The Onion, the IPKat has a tendency to find them quite amusing, particularly when they have an intellectual property flavour to them -- like this treatment of the Yankees Suck theme. The Kat thanks his good friend Miri Frankel (Beanstalk) for yet another great lead!


A press release from WIPO yesterday announced the launch by that organisation of an enhanced online patent information service that promises to improve public access to information on patents filed and granted around the world. This enhancement relates to PATENTSCOPE, which currently hosts data on more than 1.6 million international patent applications and which has now been extended to include several collections of national and regional patent information.


Recently published: the November 2009 issue of the Journal of Intellectual Property Law and Practice has been out for a week or so. You can read the editorial ("Community design and design community") here, check out its contents on the JIPLP official website or browse the value-added benefits of the recently-launched weblog.