Monday miscellany

A little "thank-you". We were thrilled with the response to last week's post, "The IPKat and his blogging friends: a 2014 update", here, in which we listed various IP-flavoured blogs with which members of the IPKat team are associated and called for possible bloggers to volunteer to join them.  We've made some new friends, received some good offers of contributions from prospective bloggers and have notched up lots of new readers.  The 1709 Blog has now topped the 2,000 mark for email subscribers, while IP Finance has passed the 1,400 mark. The MARQUES Class 46 European trade mark blog, in which four Kats past and present have a paw, has now reached 3,700 email readers.  Thanks so much for your interest and support: we're here to serve you and do appreciate your continued involvement.

Old Nick. This Tuesday (ie tomorrow) Kat team members Jeremy and Darren (S) will be getting together with a friend or two for a quiet intellectual property chat and a refreshing pint of Badger at The Old Nick, Holborn between 5.15 and 6.30 pm or thereabouts. If any reader happens to be in the area and wants to come and say "hello", he, she or indeed it [that's Merpel's idea; she's very inclusionist...] is welcome to join them.  You can find the Old Nick here.

Save the date. Details will soon be announced of an IPKat seminar, "Online copyright + enforcement = happiness?", which will take place in a London venue on the afternoon of Tuesday 1 April.  This seminar is very much the brainchild of Kat blogger Eleonora, with Jeremy in the chair. It will cover various aspects of online enforcement, looking at blocking injunctions, the role of ISPs, global enforcement strategy and enforcement in the EU under the shadow of increased activism on the part of the Court of Justice of the European Union. If you're interested, save the date -- and wait  for us to publish details (please don't email the Kats to ask for details or to tell us you're coming!)


Did you notice the Notice?  Not everyone has spotted "Notice No. 12/13 of the President of the German Patent and Trade Mark Office of 28 November 2013 providing information on the introduction of the electronic file inspection via the Internet in patent and utility model procedures" The title might not be very sexy, but the news is good.  According to the President:

The inspection of patent and utility model files of the German Patent and Trade Mark Office (DPMA) will also be possible via the Internet as of 7 January 2014 [that's last Tuesday, observes Merpel]. The statutory basis required for this service was created by the Act Revising Certain Provisions of Patent Law and Other Acts in the Field of Industrial Property Protection of 19 October 2013 (Federal Law Gazette I p. 3830). Electronic inspection of files is a free service of the DPMA. 

A katpat goes to Dehns' Alexander Robinson for jogging the Kats' elbows memories and prompting them to pass the word on.

Around the blogs. One of our new friends on the IP blogosphere is Lucas S. Michels (Ironmark Law Group, PLLC, Seattle) whose blog, The IP Exporter ("Protecting Intellectual Property Rights in a Globalized Market"), you can check out here. This blog has an archive stretching back to December 2012 and there's a refreshingly international flavour to it. Elsewhere, IP Finance's Mike Mireles has posted this piece on philanthropy and funding for the creation of IP, Class 46's Laetitia Lagarde writes on a recent General Court decision in which the OHIM Board of Appeal was taken to task for its failure to give proper reasons -- a decision which invoices showing sale of trade marked goods (HERBACIN) outside the EU, but issued in the EU, constituted proof of use of that mark.