Monday miscellany

Even Kats like to acquire
some new skills ...

In search of experience.  This Kat has a very good friend who is a highly intelligent, well educated young lady.  Gaining a distinction in her Legal Practice Course at the College of Law, she qualified as a solicitor in England and Wales and has practised since November 2011 in a firm with a highly specialised niche practice in an area of law that is a long, long way from commercial law.  She is now considering whether she should broaden her practice experience and move into the general area of commercial law (including, if it should come to it, intellectual property law).  Accordingly she's looking for an environment, be it in-house or in private practice, in which she can gain a taste of what practice in this area is all about. If any reader can accommodate her for a few months, can he or she please email this Kat at jjip@btinternet.com and let him know.  All serious offers will be forwarded and will be acknowledged with thanks.  This Kat is willing to give a personal reference if so required.

Around the weblogs.  Until very recently, this Kat was unaware of IP.NEWS, the Belgian bloggie brainchild of Axel Beelen. You can sample it here (by the way, it's in French).  Good luck Axel, say the Kats, we do like your origami bird logo (left).  Elsewhere, Art & Artifice started its 2014 blogging with "Tax exempt artworks: a "racket in urgent need of reform"?", a neat post by art-expert-turned-tax-lawyer Liz Emerson.  On Class 99 Hossain Badamchi gifts the blog with a story of how Lindt saved its packaging from a predatory design registrant in Iran by dint of its earlier trade mark registration, while blog founder David Musker muses on the problems of downloading Community design registration certificates. In an open letter on the jiplp weblog, Julian Cockbain asks whether the European Patent Office's facility for petitioning to review non-kosher Board of Appeal decisions is actually a Norwegian parrot.  On the 1709 Blog, we read a lament from veteran Polish DJ Yahu Pawul that copyright collecting societies are persecuting his species.  Finally, on IP Finance, fellow Kat Neil considers the economics of the cinema and who or what theatres are actually competing against.

The Institute of Trade Mark Attorneys (ITMA) in the United Kingdom is letting it be known that "Media, Pop Culture and the Law", the organisation's Spring Conference, will soon be upon us.  This year it runs from 19 to 21 March, in the lovely city of London.  Although it's billed as a Spring Conference, the weather has been a bit hit-and-miss in recent times, so registrants are strongly advised to bring their own springs.  For further details, including special Super Early Bird reductions in the registration fees that finish on Friday 10 January, just click here.