Wednesday whimsies

Hats off to design
for the future!

Once again the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) is taking heed of the IPKat's exhortations. Just two short days after this weblog lamented that the world's favourite IP agency hadn't updated its World Intellectual Property Day website, it did (and the evidence is here). It would be churlish to complain when an international agency complies with the IPKat’s writ BUT, while the updated site now gives us this year’s theme (“Designing the future”) and a bit more to go on, there is none of the usual attractive artwork and downloads for the Kat to cut-and-paste. No copyright problems, we hope …


Not behind the times, like the WIPO might just occasionally be, but commendably ahead of it, is the Court of Justice of the European Union.  Remarkably, given its occasion bursts of inactivity, the Curia has updated its case law search page to 13 May 2011, as you can see by clicking here (this will only work until the correct is restored by the Curia reader who reads this blog, though he or she pretends not to ...).  This Kat thanks a fellow feline, Mark, for the pointer.

Around the blogs. It’s not often that you see a book review being vaunted as a masterpiece, but Chris Wadlow’s magnificent “Butterworths Book of Sand”, which you can find on jiplp, is a must for all who love patents and the short stories of Jorge Luis Borges. The 1709 Blog carries a brief obituary for the notorious copyright infringement proceedings brought by the late Media CAT (no relation) against 26 named alleged porno-file-sharers.  The 15th episode of Cautious v IPOff, chronicled weekly by the PatLit weblog, can be perused here. IP Tango reports that Ecuador has affirmed the notion that intellectual property rights are constitutional rights, here, and there have been some developments in the investigation of the murder of customs officer and anti-counterfeit expert Johan Nortje, recorded here on Afro-IP.

Ontario, when
the snow melts

If Canada' patent law means something to you, now's your chance to have a say.  Information received from the Kat's old friend Andrea Rush (Heenan Blaikie) is that Canada's Patent Branch has begun consultation on Chapter 14 of its Manual of Patent Office Practice (MOPOP) which deals with Unity of Invention.  The draft revised Chapter 14 was released for public consultation on Monday and you can check it out here. Stakeholders have the opportunity to provide comments on the draft chapter until 7 April 2011, when the ice starts to thaw and Canadians turn their thoughts to spring. For more information, says Andrea, you can visit CIPO’s What'’s New website.


The IPKat has learned with sadness of the death of Michael Cohn late last month.  Michael took over the practice of his father's firm, Reinhold Cohn and :Partners, which he ran for some 40 years until he retired in 2000.  An active member of the AIPPI, he was also a knowledgeable and thoughtful soul with whom it was always a pleasure to share a discussion on IP or wider issues. He will be very much missed.