Friday fantasies

Friday -- not just the name of one of the characters in Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, but a time to reflect on the future. To aid this process, don't forget to consult the oracle known as the IPKat's Forthcoming Events list, which you can find in this weblog's sidebar. So take a look, and have a lovely weekend!


Around the blogs. (i) Do you ever get the urge to write something? If so, this might be your golden opportunity: the Journal of Intellectual Property Law and Practice (JIPLP) is looking for authors for a list of ten topics, listed here -- but speed is of the essence, since they're going like hot cakes. (ii) Question: "What's the least you can expect when you go around stealing punch lines?" Answer: "A short sentence". For further information see Hugo Cox's post on IP norms in stand-up comedy routines here. (iii) And for those who enjoy investigative blogging, David Musker checks out allegations that a mole in the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market has been leaking car designs here ... (iv) the pre-release version of the UNCITRAL Legislative Guide on Secured Transactions, Supplement on Security Rights in Intellectual Property is now available: details via IP Finance here.

Your opinion counts. Patent litigation weblog PatLit is currently running a readers' poll as to whether it should (i) focus just on litigation or on all types of dispute resolution and (ii) remain patent-based or expand to cover litigation/dispute resolution in other areas of IP too. Click here to find the poll.

Want to be Doctored? The University of Leuven (Belgium)'s Centre for Intellectual Property Rights (CIR) and the Department of Managerial Economics, Strategy and Innovation (MSI) are seeking to recruit a Doctoral Researcher in Law and two Doctoral Researchers in Economics in order to investigate the interaction between legal architectures and open innovation strategies: these posts run for four years from this October. Interested? Click here to apply online by 10 September or email the IPKat's distinguished friends Geertrui Van Overwalle or Bart Van Looy for further information. Merpel says, the University allegedly carries out an equal opportunity and diversity policy, but it looks to me as though there's positive discrimination in favour of economists here ...


One of the IPKat's friends is doing a little background research on a copyright dispute involving a cartoonist's moral rights, Tidy v Trustees of the Natural History Museum (1995) 39 IPR 501. The Tidy in question is the legendary (in this Kat's opinion) Bill Tidy, author of the awesome Fosdyke Saga -- a parody of John Galsworthy's Forsyte Saga which ran for 14 years -- and the fearsome series, The Cloggies, which ran for nearly 20 years. If you have any information or background on the litigation in question, email it to the IPKat here and he'll forward it to his friend. Bill Tidy, incidentally, is the author of what this blogger considers to be one of the most brilliant, poignant cartoons of all time (depicted left: you can order it here, along with some of his other classics. While anxious crowds beseige the Titanic Survivors Lists, a man asks on behalf of the polar bear: "Is there any news of the iceberg?").