Friday fantasies

Events, events, events -- whatever sort you want, you can find them here, in gay profusion, in the IKat's Forthcoming Events list. So please remember to check it out ...


Thank you, Gavin Ward (Scots Law Blog), for drawing the IPKat's attention to "Passing off Nessie?", a delightful little piece by the Kat's old friend Hector MacQueen on a dispute between two rival Nessie exhibition centres in Drumnadrochit, Scotland. The disputants were the Official Loch Ness Exhibition Centre, a five-star attraction established near the Drumnadrochit Hotel in 1980, and the Original Loch Ness Monster Visitor Centre, a three-star centre established since 1987. The two centres are about 100 yards apart. We shall never now know where there was a likelihood of confusion, since the two have restyled themselves as (i) the Loch Ness Centre and Exhibition and (ii) the Nessieland Castle Monster Centre. Nessie was not available for comment.

If you care about IP enough to make sure that your own personal views count, Oxford University's Global Economic Governance Expert Taskforce on Global Knowledge Governance invites you to take part in a short international survey on Global Knowledge Governance and Intellectual Property (details here, or thereabouts). This survey will help the Taskforce gather a diversity of views from around the world on challenges facing the international institutional arrangements and processes that shape the rules and practices for creating, using and sharing knowledge -- and related goods and services.

Left: you may have views on IP and the increasing North-South Divide ...

It also seeks views on principles that should guide reforms and specific options for consideration. If you have between 20 and 30 minutes to spare between now and 30 July 2010 [well, that rules out the IPKat, though Merpel might just manage ...] and want your views to count, particularly if you think IP really is a good thing that should be lovingly protected against counterfeiters, crooks and economists, this is your golden moment! Thanks, Hugo Cox, for spotting this initiative for us.

Around the blogs. Well done Fashionista-at-Law, which has today attracted its 500th email subscriber. Incidentally, Fashionista supports the Handbags at Dawn IP and fashion conference (here). On the subject of fashion (sort of), the IPKat notes that SOLO IP -- the weblog for those who work for themselves or in very small units within the field of IP -- has treated itself to a face-lift (here). This blog is always looking for talented contributors: if you think you may be one, get in touch with Filemot here and she'll soon size you up!

Are you too small to afford a subscription to the Westlaw UK's IP service? If so, this post on the SOLO IP weblog may be of interest to you. This is just the sort of really positive thing that responsible social networking in the intelletual property community can achieve. And talking of small things, if you are a small litigant in person you too can take on the might of Toyota, as Lisa and Farzad Tabari did in the US when a court held that the injunction barring their use of the word Lexus in their brokerage's website addresses buy-a-lexus.com and buyorleaselexus.com was "plainly overbroad". According to the report, "The Tabaris hired a lawyer. But after the legal bills racked up, they decided to go pro se. Neither one has any legal training. Lisa Tabari said she would read and do research on the case at night and then grab some sleep in the morning [notes Merpel, it's surprising how often reading law leads to sleep ...] while her husband watched their two young daughters". Details from Law.com here.