Monday miscellany Part 1

IPKat guest bloggers. Earlier this month the IPKat proudly announced Norman Siebrasse as the first of a batch of guest bloggers for the first half of 2012. Today he is pleased to introduce the second: Nashville, Tennessee-based attorney Tara Aaron. You can read all about her on her website here. The Kat hopes to unveil a couple more guest bloggers in the not-too-distant future, so watch this space! Meanwhile, Merpel joins the IPKat in wishing Tara all the best of luck!

The IPKat has learned that all the Chinese governmental authorities, including the Chinese State Intellectual Property Office (“SIPO”) and the China Trade Mark Office (“CTO”), will all close their offices from 22 to 28 January 2012 so that they can celebrate the traditional Chinese Spring Festival. According to Chinese law, all deadlines for filing with SIPO, CTO and any other Chinese governmental authorities during this period are extended to the first working day after the holiday, which according to the Kats' Kalendar, is 29 January. Some law firms may be treating themselves to a day or two extra so, if you have any significant deadlines in China, it's worth giving them your full attention now (thanks go to Bill H. Zhang, Managing Partner, China Sunbow & Associates, for this handy information).

Not on holiday but on strike: the Nigeria Labour Congress, Trade Union Congress and Coalition of Civil Societies have generated a nationwide strike to protest  against the recent increase in the price of premium motor spirit (petrol) in Nigeria last week. In result, 98% of the nation's offices have been closed down. These include the Trade Marks, Patent and Design Registry. The IPKat learns from Bolanle Olowu (IPI Watch Services) that the Nigerian Trade Marks, Patent and Design Acts do not make provisions for such circumstances, so it's not clear what will happen with regard to deadlines, priority dates and other calendar-sensitive issues once the strike ends. This is sad news for all Kats and others who recall that, even in the absence of a strike, Nigeria has had to face the constant challenge of tackling backlogs.

With so many bits of the European Union growling at each other over unitary patents and unified patent litigation, this Kat quite forgot to announce some very positive news from the Continent of Controversy.  On 9 December, without any growling at all, Croatia and the European Union signed an accession agreement that will have the effect of bringing Croatia -- one of the most interestingly-shaped jurisdictions on in the whole continent -- into the EU on 1 July 2013.  Yes, folks, this means that you'll be getting one more country for your Community trade mark, registered Community design, Community plant variety right and, the Kats presume, your unitary patent -- and also assuming that Croatia's referendum on accession next week goes the right way.

Around the weblogs. Kingsley Egbuonu's A to Z trek round African official IP websites on behalf of Afro-IP takes him to Mali, where the local copyright office does indeed have a web presence even if its IP office doesn't.  Congratulations to the Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice (JIPLP)'s jiplp weblog on notching up its 600th subscriber. Unsurprisingly, news of the extradition of a British student to the United States to face criminal copyright charges has taken space in the 1709 Blog here and here.  Art & Artifice reports on the impact of a woman's buttocks on a Clifford Still painting: derogatory treatment of the author's original work or the creation of a new work, perhaps?