Wednesday whimsies

Don't forget to check out the IPKat's forthcoming events page. Quite a few new events have been listed of late, including the TIPLO Christmas meeting (fortuitously taking place on 3 December, to enable members to attend everyone else's Christmas events too in the three weeks leading to 25 December).You'll also find details of all sorts of conferences for which IPKat weblog readers are entitled to claim a comfy discount.

Trolls are off.  Last week, the IPKat alerted readers to of the opportunity to attend an Attorney General roundtable in New York City at which the topic of discussion was to be patent trolls and the effect they have on businesses. Unfortunately, the event organizers have just announced that the event will no longer take place on 19 November, being postponed until 2014.  Watch this space for updates: the IPKat has no doubt that the Attorneys General who were expected to attend the roundtable will continue taking newsworthy novel actions against patent trolls.


You can meet the United Kingdom’s four overseas IP attachés in London next Wednesday, 20 November, thanks to the UK's Intellectual Property Office (IPO), which has arranged for all four of them to be in London at the same time [Whoops, that's unfortunate, says Merpel. Isn't London about the one place where they can be guaranteed not to be able to deploy their skills?]. This particular Fab Four have up-to-date knowledge of IP issues affecting their markets, including measures being taken to address counterfeiting, patent trolls and copyright infringement. In no particular order they are

• Sheila Alves, based in the British Embassy in Brasilia, Brazil;
• Anshika Jha, based in the British High Commission in New Delhi, India;
• Tom Dukes, former head of the IP Centre at the European Union Chamber of Commerce in South Korea, now based in Beijing, China;
•  Christabel Koh, who has just been appointed to cover South East Asia, from Singapore. 

 The meeting starts at 4 pm at the offices of the Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys: CIPA, 3rd floor, 95 Chancery Lane, London WC2A 1DT, followed by refreshments and a spell of informal mingling. If you'd like to attend, email Sarah Harmsworth at IPAN@cipa.org.uk by this Friday, 15 November, or phone +44 20 7440 9360.

Looking for a job?  The UK Intellectual Property Office (IPO) is holding a recruitment event on Thursday 28 November in Newport, Wales. Alas, it's aimed at IT folk rather than us IP-ers, but if you are a techie nerd who is unemployed and loves IP, the civil service lifestyle and Wales, this might be your big break. Details are available here.

Around the weblogs. "Dutch Bastard Gets EU Protection" was the somewhat surprising title of a Class 46 post this week: it turns out that 'Bastard' is one of a number of terms now protected as a TSG (traditional speciality guaranteed) within the 28 EU Member States: it applies to a sugar product which, Dutch Katfriend Gino van Roeyen tells us, is good for sore throats when eaten with white bread.  Another unusual consumable -- the PCTeabag (illustrated, right) -- was at the heart of a SOLO IP post on fellow blogger Michael Factor's imaginative ploy to make his mark at a recent AIPPI conference.