Monday miscellany

Genetically modified cats that can paint,
write, sing and sculpt: each has nine lives
at life plus 70 ...

The theme for World Intellectual Property Day 2013 is "Creativity: The Next Generation". This is not the IPKat's suggestion, though he is quite happy to go along with it: the next generation are not just the next batch of IP creators -- they're also the next lot of IP consumers. It is they who will decide which brands, which music, which designs succeed. Merpel's not so sure about the theme: in her view, "Creativity: The Next Generation" doesn't lie well with the retrospective extension of copyright to cover authors' works that were made by the previous generation -- or even the generations before that -- and it sits even less comfortably with the bringing back into copyright of works that have entered the public domain. Never mind, the US Supreme Court has already agonised over these issues in Eldred v Ashcroft and Golan v Holder so we can be comforted that they weren't a problem after all. Be that as it may, World IP Day is party time, not least because, by a remarkable coincidence, it always seems to fall on Professor Sir Robin Jacob's birthday. Further details of World IP Day are available from WIPO itself, here and, if you prefer the warm informality of Facebook to the stern official countenance of WIPO's website, here (this Facebook reopens on 2 March, it seems).

Clipperton Island, France

The new edition of Brandstrike’s Guide to Protecting Trademarks in European Dependent Territories is now available. It's one of those weird and wonderful publications that make you wonder where Europe actually is.  Having read only yesterday that Cyprus was part of Asia, this Kat is happy to consider various parts of Polynesia to be as European as, er, parts of Africa (think Ceuta and Melilla). If you don't know whether to buy it or not, Brandstrike's amiable Damian Croker will send you a free sample: just email him here.  The full version costs £48, which is a lot cheaper than a return ticket to one of Europe's remotest outposts, Clipperton Island.

Logos cost money,
even for the IPO

In "Instant Response: IPO bows to Kat comment, changes logo", this Kat excitedly commented on the sudden and unexpected announcement that the UK's Intellectual Property Office had indeed changed its logo, shortly after he had again poked fun at it.  Now here's a sort of sequel.  Richard Smith (katpat!) was curious about the cost of new logos and wrote to find out.  This is the reply he received:

"The previous IPO logo was designed by a company called Precedent who charged the IPO £9,650.00 + VAT, totalling = £11,338.75. As well as the logo design itself, most of the visible costs of switching to it related to Facilities Management expenditure such as new signs, the franking machine, the van stencil, etc. 

Last time around this category of expenditure totalled £11,470. (I should add that sum included £1,110 spent on changing staff passes, which will not be needed this time as passes are no longer required to feature an Office logo.) 

The new logo was designed by the Cabinet Office so the IPO will not bear any commissioning costs. 

We will shortly be working through a programme to change the logo on stationery and IT systems and this will incur costs in terms of staff time which are not readily quantifiable. I would add though that now, as then, we are committed to using up existing stocks of stationery and publications so far as is practicable. Any items which will eventually have to be disposed of will be recycled in line with our environmental policy".

Next time, says Merpel, if the IPO lets us know we'll ask our readers to do the job.  They're a talented bunch and quite arty when the mood takes them.

Around the weblogs.  A new kid on the block (or at any rate on the blogosphere) is Fabrice Mattei (Rouse Thailand), whose distinctively-named Winelexasia blog is set to cover legal and business development in the Asian wine industry.  Good luck, Fabrice! The Kat also welcomes an initiative from one of his recent guest Kats, Robert Cumming (now of Appleyard Lees), whose iPit weblog promises a varied fare of content on the interface or fault line between IP and information technology.  Elsewhere, on PatLit Dave Berry notes President Barack Obama's live Google hangout on patent trolls; on MARQUES' Class 46 blog Birgit Clark introduces readers to German litigation over registration of the trade mark HEADF*CK (the letters 'CK' have a special significance and it's nothing to do with Calvin Klein ...).  On the 1709 Blog, Ben Challis's post "Afghan forgers cross swords with the Taleban" should be in the running for the most improbable title of any IP post ever. Finally, Kingsley Egbuonu's arduous toil on behalf of Afro-IP takes him back to Mauritania, where oil is still seen as a more important commodity than intellectual property, alas.