Monday miscellany

Sidebar polls. The IPKat's sidebar poll on the renaming of the merged firms of law firms SJ Berwin and King & Wood Mallesons has only a couple of days to run, but has received not far short of 300 responses so far. It would be good to hit that figure, so please participate if you've not done so already. Meanwhile the jiplp poll on what people understand to be the meaning of the words "Greek yoghurt" is hovering around the 100 mark but still has the best part of three weeks to go. As for the efficacy of the US-style "fair use" copyright defence, the 1709 Blog's poll is ticking over nicely, with eight days still ahead, and let's not forget the Afro-IP poll on where the World Intellectual Property Organization should locate its African regional IP office(s): with four days to go and 133 votes cast, Kenya is just edging South Africa but with Zimbabwe breathing down the front-runners' necks.

Katfriend and occasional guest Tom Carver (Wragge & Co) has dropped us a line to remind us that the UK Intellectual Property Office (IPO) has posted an IP attaché to Beijing, the first (and current) incumbent being Tom Duke. Says Tom I, Tom II produces a regular newsletter on Chinese IP and a regularly updated Embassy IP webpage.  Thanks Toms, says the IPKat, though Merpel is altogether far more interested in the UKIPO's policy with regard to cookies ...


Who is taking advantage of Guernsey's image rights law under the Image Rights (Bailiwick of Guernsey) Ordinance, 2012?  From a recent media relief this Kat has learned that at least one company is: Icondia.  It seems that Icondia’s registration was approved on 22 July 2013, this being the first registration of a commercial entity following the recent reduction of registration fees for ‘legal persons’.  According to Icondia’s CEO, Keith Laker:

“Registration provides a potentially far-wider degree of protection than the traditional – but limited – options such as registered trade mark protection. We view the corporate registration of personality as the best possible protection for any company with an evolving brand image & corporate identity. In the case of Icondia – as a newly formed company seeking global recognition – that’s important to us”.

If you've not yet heard of Icondia, you may be wondering what it does. This Kat can tell you, quoting the business itself:

“As far as we are aware, we are the only business focusing exclusively on Image Rights advice management and implementation right across the spectrum of potential customers using the Image Rights Ordinance. It is our aim to be the preferred choice for individuals, brands, corporate entities and professional advisors with an interest in protecting their or their clients’ personality under this unique law”.

That would explain it, says Merpel.

Art and Artifice.  The Art & Artifice art-and-law blog covers IP and plenty more besides.  What's more, while this Kat helps out with the blog's back pages and logistics, the team itself consists of a bunch of very talented bunch of ladies with lots of bright ideas.  You can now follow Art and Artifice on Twitter, at @ArtArtificeBlog.  Also, watch this space for further news of an event that Art and Artifice is organising on 24 October, for a venue which is still under negotiation in Central London, at which Michael Edenborough QC will be reviewing the celebrated Red Bus art-and-copyright case with the benefit of a little hindsight. This event will be free, so save the date!

Dealing with complaints can be depressing:
a little light humour always helps ...

OHIM happy with its own performance.  The Kats are delighted to learn from the Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (OHIM) that, on 25 June, our friends in Alicante were assessed for compliance with the recommendations of the CSM ISO 10002:2004 standard ("Guidelines for complaints handling in organisation"). Says OHIM:

"We are pleased to announce the excellent results obtained: the assessment report confirmed that a mature, comprehensive and documented complaints handling system is in place [well, they should have enough practice dealing with them, squeals Merpel before she is roundly shushed for her rudeness ...], integrated in and aligned with OHIM’s Quality Management System. The management of complaints also features a comprehensive measurement, analysis and reporting component, allowing OHIM to track and monitor performance and continual improvement of the system. A Level 3 Statement of Assessment will be issued, which is the highest level that can be achieved. For more information on complaints handling at OHIM, see the webpage of Complaints Unit [this link actually tells you how to complain, if you're a true grumblebunny and have nothing better to do with your time]".

The view from the windows of the OHIM Building ...?

Everyone else happy with OHIM's performance. Celebration has attended the publication of the results of OHIM’s sixth User Satisfaction Survey, which are now available on the Office’s website. According to OHIM, the survey aims to measure the perceived level of quality of the services that OHIM offers its users and takes into account over 1,200 responses received. The perception of the various core business areas all showed an increase compared to last year, with some very high scores in some areas, such as register management and the Boards of Appeal. Users also perceived a significant improvement in the predictability of decisions rendered by the Office [In any long-term relationship, 'predictability' can be a euphemism for 'boring' -- but Merpel can't stop thinking about this morning's post].  The survey showed that these results were more or less mirrored across the EU, with some figures slightly lower in Germany and the Netherlands [better OHIM performance, muses Merpel, or less miserable users?]. Overall, the gains achieved in 2011 in terms of overall satisfaction levels among agents and owners were consolidated in 2012.

Ecstatic over elexica?  Katfriend and design law guru David.Stone (Simmons & Simmons) has quite properly written to remind this Kat about the existence of elexica, his firm's award-winning, free online legal resource.  While elexica covers a range of jurisdictions, languages and legal and sector specialisms -- including intellectual property -- the most impressive thing about it is that a word-search for "cat" throws up 1,089 results, which can't be bad! Seriously, this resource has continued to improve since its launch, and it has even gone multilingual.  We are all jealous and impressed.