Friday fantasies

The Forthcoming Events list for 2011 is building up nicely, so please don't forget to check it out!

Full speed ahead -- but will
he get his submission in by
the 1 March cut-off date?

The IPKat has already reported that the independent review on intellectual property and growth in the UK (the Hargreaves Review, on which see IPKat posts here and earlier) has issued a call for evidence, To recap, the focus of the review is to consider how the IP framework might be changed in the interest of promoting innovation and growth. In particular, it will consider whether there are any barriers to innovation and growth in the IP system and how the IP framework could better enable new business models that are appropriate to the digital age. What this blogger didn't know is that responses to the call for evidence are invited by 1 March 2011, in the expectation that the review will report in April 2011.  That doesn't give much time, so if you're going to be making a submission please start work on it now.


Thanks to Chris Torrero the IPKat has been pointed to some potentially interesting papers on the economics of Industrial Research and Innovation, which can be accessed here.  They are

#12/2010: Doing R&D or not, that is the question (in a crisis)

#11/2010: Corporate R&D and firm efficiency: Evidence from Europe’s top R&D investors

#10/2010: The determinants of R&D Investment: the role of Cash flow and Capabilities

#9/2010: What is small? Small and medium enterprises facing patenting activities

#8/2010: Innovation and Employment: A firm level analysis with European R&D Scoreboard data

#7/2010: Young Leading Innovators and EU’s R&D intensity gap

The Kat hasn't had the time to read them yet, and wonders whether they contain any of the evidence that the Hargreaves Review (above) seeks.  If one or more diligent reader with time on his/her hands would like to skim them for facts and conclusions that can be cut, pasted and sent to the Review, that would be an act of great and unremunerated kindness.

Sporting their attractive new uniforms,
Mongolian trade mark examiners train
for the onset of the Singapore rules

Planning a trip to Mongolia? If so, you will be pleasantly surprised to learn that that remote (unless you're Mongalian) republic has deposited its instrument of accession to the Singapore Treaty on the Law of Trademarks, which takes effect there on 3 March 2011.  Says Merpel, that gives me two days to get there for the Coming Into Force Celebrations after I've deposited my submissions for the Hargreaves Review.  Notes the IPKat, there's a website set aside by the Mongolian government, but not currently operating, for the promotion of Mongolian brands.  Let's watch this space and see what happens.

It's not widely known, but the idea for loose-leaf
binders was inspired by the man-trap

Careful with that Christmas post! If you're a Sweet & Maxwell customers, don't throw anything away before you've checked it. Release 34 (December 2010) of that publisher's European Patent Decisions, updating the dreaded Looseleaf [who'd have thought we'd still be using loose-leaf in the digital age?] to October 2010 has now been released.  When you're inserting your latest release, mind your fingers!

The first waffle iron: great for
food but terrible for shirts

For those who are easily bored, US IP practice Brown & Michaels, PC, has kindly compiled a patent quiz, which you can find here.  The IPKat used to love these quizzes in the days before the internet, because you actually had to know the answers or at least be the owner of a fully-fledged reference library.  Now all you need is a computer and access to a search engine.  In his opinion the real test shouldn't be whether you know the answers or not, but how few searches you need in order to find them.  Merpel says, no!  The first 18 questions are the same: "Can you guess when these patents were issued in the USA?" -- and the answer is always going to be "yes" or "no".

Around the blogs.  The IPKat has been asked to introduce his readers to an Indian IP blog of which he was not previously aware.  It's called SiNApSE and you can inspect it here. This is a Brain League initiative, run by its Nurturing Genius director, Kaylan.  Elsewhere on the Blogosphere, things are quietening down for the new year holiday season -- but expect plenty of excitement and adventure when 2011 dawns!

The IPKat has recently been in correspondence with a young and charming Polish lawyer with interests in intellectual property, new media and IT law -- and a CV to kill for.  He does not intend to practise as a barrister in England and Wales but he is seeking an unfunded pupillage there in order to enrich his experience, following which he will return to the post that is being held for him by the Polish affiliate of a large, successful company in the telecoms sector.  If you can offer him an unfunded pupillage for six months from October 2011, he -- and the IPKat -- will be delighted.  If you'd like to know more, please email the IPKat here and let him know; he'll forward your email.

The IPKat has learned from Diane Richards that there have been some useful developments of the Inspec Database, produced by the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET).  Inspec contains over 100 years’ worth of prior art records from the world’s technical and scientific literature in physics, computing, control engineering, electronics, electrical engineering, information technology, manufacturing, production and mechanical engineering -- not to mention over 20,500 records with abstracts for selected UK and US basic and equivalent patents in the fields of physics, electronics, computing and control which were published from 1968 to 1976.  Since January Inspec has been mapping its indexing schemes to the WIPO International Patent Classification (IPC) scheme in order to assign IPC codes to relevant records. 75% of Inspec records contain IPC codes, with an average of two codes per record.  This all adds up to a valuable tool for the prior art searcher, allowing the ready clustering of relevant non-patent literature within the same familiar code structure used for patents. Further information is available here.