Monday miscellany

INTA Scholarships. It's a week since the IPKat excitedly announced that the International Trademark Association (INTA) was offering no fewer than five scholarships to assist students who would like to attend this year's Meeting in Dallas. The closing date is this coming Friday, 25 January, so if you are thinking of applying you'd better get a move on! Once the scholarships are awarded, the Kat hopes to hear from the lucky recipients and would love to learn about their experiences at this vast, thrilling event. This in turn might encourage more scholars to come forward in future years.

IP PROTECT EXPO 2013 will soon be upon us, taking place on 5 to 6 February in the congenial surroundings of London's Business Design Centre, London. Last year's IP PROTECT EXPO was well worth the effort, if the unbiased evidence of this YouTube clip can be relied on. The event promises "a unique learning and networking opportunity for rights holders, brands, industry bodies and associations, technology vendors, online security experts, investigation specialists and enforcement agencies", plus the prospect of an early glimpse of the latest UK Minister for IP, Lord Younger. On a more serious note, IP PROTECT EXPO is co-hosted by the Anti-Counterfeiting Group, which brings with it a 'super-plus' version of its IP Training Days with a separate exhibition by brand owners, a dedicated area for law enforcement networking and a series of IP Masterclasses, details of which appear at the end of each day's Expo seminar programme. When booking Masterclasses and seminars online, a 50% discount is available to industry colleagues using the code IPPE218 during the registration process. Website registration and available discounts close on 1 February 2013.

Around the weblogs ...  Here's an elegant piece of IP history writing, with a surprisingly contemporary twist to it, from the ever-fertile brain of IP Draughts' Mark Anderson. Elsewhere, the MARQUES Class 46 weblog is trumpeting the pleasures of practising your French on a live judge in the beautiful suburban village of Courbevoie, here.  Spare a thought for universities, says Mike Mireles on IP Finance: so much intellectual capital ... and so little cash. If you are thinking of linking, careful how you do it in the Netherlands, warns Iona Harding on the 1709 Blog. Finally, an expression of gratitude is due to Kingsley Egbuonu, who is almost single-handedly manning the Afro-IP blog right now. Power to you, Kingsley!

... and elsewhere ...  Not all the websites that the Kats purr-use are weblogs.  That's why this Kat has decided to make mention of the occasional website that might excite the imagination of his readers.  One is Dr Rolf Claessen's IP Newsflash, here. This is "an IP meta-information portal that browses your information channels for you and presents only relevant, recent and customizable IP information on a single page".

Some animals are more EQE than others. A couple of weeks ago, Katfriend Rosina Bisi (WIPO) told us about the forthcoming PCT Applicant’s Guide, prepared for students sitting the European Patent Office's EQE exams. Well, it's now ready for the future experts in European patenting to download here.  Mysteriously, Rosina adds that "the names of the moving spirits behind this Guide compilation are Kat and Cat".  We knew that, of course, but were far too modest to mention it!

Some animals are definitely not as equal as others though.  That's why the Fellows & Associates annual salary survey for 2013 makes for so much fun.  If you think that other people get a better deal than you, or that you ought to be earning more, here's your chance to supply some anonymised data that will support or refute your contention.  A little further explanation and a link to the survey, which closes on 18 February, can be found on the vastly undernourished underrated SOLO IP weblog here.

Nice job if you can get it.  The Design and Artists Copyright Society (DACS) is looking for a super-talented soul whom it can appoint as its Copyright Adviser.  The closing date for applications is this Thursday, 24 January.  Further particulars and relevant links can be found here.