Monday miscellany

Back online after his bereavement, IPKat team member Jeremy would like to thank the many readers who have written to offer him their condolences, including some whom he has not yet had the chance to meet personally. He has been greatly comforted by their kind words, which have given him strength and encouragement as he returns to his regular activities.


IPReg, the United Kingdom's regulatory body for patent and trade mark attorneys, came to life on 1 January 2010 -- a public holiday. IPReg has been set up by the Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys (CIPA) and the Institute of Trade Mark Attorneys (ITMA), and its grown-up name is the Intellectual Property Regulation Board. The IPKat wonders whether it should be pronounced with a hard "g" since that letter is part of the word "Regulation", or with a soft "g" since "Reg" without the prefix "IP" would normally be pronounced "j", to rhyme with "Veg". You can visit IPReg's website here, find registered patent and trade mark attorneys respectively here and here, and discover what to do when things go wrong here (bad news for professionals -- this page is for the clients).


This little fella is the face of the future, and he will soon be replacing the IPKat logo which has graced this weblog for the past six and a half years. If nothing else, the change will spare the team the inconvenience of answering readers' queries as to whether the IPKat is in any way related to Top Cat (he isn't). Later in the week, Merpel and the AmeriKat will be unveiled, so watch this space ...


A quick reminder: there are just 10 days left in which to enter the IPKat's Proverbs competition (closing date, 14 January). For details of the competition click here and scroll down to 'Proverbs is the name of the game'. The prize: complimentary admission to CLT's annual IP Round-Up conference on 28 January and the proverbial free lunch!.
Monday miscellany Monday miscellany Reviewed by Jeremy on Monday, January 04, 2010 Rating: 5

3 comments:

  1. Also, should IPReg be pronounced as a single word ("Ipreg") or with IP as separate initials ("eye-pea-reg")?

    When I attended one of IPReg's seminars a few months ago, the favoured form seemed to be the single word with a hard "g".

    ReplyDelete
  2. At the moment, I'm not too sure what IPREG could do should things do go wrong: per website (client page):

    "From 1st January 2010 the IPReg has taken over responsibility for regulating the patent and trade mark attorney professions, including dealing with complaints of professional misconduct.

    What to do if you have a complaint

    A complaint about the conduct of an attorney or firm of attorneys must relate to an alleged breach of one or more of the rules set out in the Code of Conduct which applies to both individual attorneys and firms of attorneys regulated by IPReg.

    Generally complaints must relate to matters which have occurred within the last 12 months. If the complaint is made outside that period then an explanation why the complaint could not have been brought earlier must be provided.

    All complaints relating to an alleged breach of the Code are considered under the Rules of Disciplinary Procedure [to be published]."

    The words "cart", "before" and "horse" spring to mind.

    Incidentally, I believe that a hard "g" would be more appropriate since the "g" in regulation is also hard - besides I don't believe that an IP Reginald possesses the required gravity.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Clicking on the "Find a Registered Trade Mark Attorney" box on the IPREG site or the IPKat "here" merely directs you to the ITMA home page. The desired information is not accessible on this page. You are unable to see the Register.

    ReplyDelete

All comments must be moderated by a member of the IPKat team before they appear on the blog. Comments will not be allowed if the contravene the IPKat policy that readers' comments should not be obscene or defamatory; they should not consist of ad hominem attacks on members of the blog team or other comment-posters and they should make a constructive contribution to the discussion of the post on which they purport to comment.

It is also the IPKat policy that comments should not be made completely anonymously, and users should use a consistent name or pseudonym (which should not itself be defamatory or obscene, or that of another real person), either in the "identity" field, or at the beginning of the comment. Current practice is to, however, allow a limited number of comments that contravene this policy, provided that the comment has a high degree of relevance and the comment chain does not become too difficult to follow.

Learn more here: http://ipkitten.blogspot.com/p/want-to-complain.html

Powered by Blogger.