Friday's on Thursday this week

Since so many readers of this weblog will not be at their desks tomorrow, as various holidays take their toll on happy work routines, the IPKat and Merpel decided that they'd bring the Friday Fantasies forward to today. All the Kats are united in wishing readers a happy holiday season, regardless of their race, religion, salary, sporting allegiances, IP specialities, position regarding unified patents courts and, er, whatever ...

If you happen to be in Latvia later this month and are looking for a pleasant blend of education, excitement and networking, there's a neat little seminar coming up in Riga on Friday 27 April. It's called "IP Protection in the Digital Environment" and it is the brainchild of the AIPPI Latvian National Group. The seminar team consists of two members of the IPKat team (Jeremy and Annsley, both of whom have written chapters in the freshly-published Google and the Law, here), as well as 1709 Blog team blogger Eleonora Rosati. If you want to join us, check out the programme here and register here.

The IPKat has just been learning about SWERCOTS -- a partnership of 15 English local authority trading standards services which work together to maximise the benefits of regional collaboration and to enable each to be more effective in the delivery of locally responsive services. Bearing in mind the valuable role played by trading standards services in combating counterfeiting at the places where fakes and infringements meet the consumer -- shops, market stalls, car boot sales and the like -- and recognising how under-resourced and overstretched they are, any collaboration that facilitates information exchange and makes more efficient use of their resources is to be welcomed.  Merpel wonders if any readers have encountered a less aesthetically pleasing name of late than "SWERCOTS".

Recent posts on this weblog have featured one novel about a patent attorney practice and another by a patent attorney.  To quote Chakrabarty (citing Ecclesiastes I, 9) there is nothing new under the sun.  The IPKat's friend Kfir Luzzatto (Luzzatto & Luzzatto) has been writing novels for years and, coincidentally, has just announced the publication of his own third novel, The Evelyn Project.  Novels are not the only things Kfir writes: you can catch the flavour of his writing habits here.  The IPKat wonders if this tendency is confined to patent-y people and topics, or whether it spreads to trade marks, copyrights and designs.  Merpel ventures to suggest that no-one is ever going to write a novel based on Community design practice: the words "losing the plot" keep flashing through her mind ...