Wednesday whimsies

Around the weblogs.  A piece on Azrights, "Not-so-public information", reports that "it has been an uphill struggle to get a straight answer as to how we might access a copy of the classification database managed centrally by the European trade mark registry OHIM": readers' suggestions are keenly sought.  The increasingly-active SOLO IP blog carries a neat piece from Barbara Cookson, this time on patent grace periods and the UK Intellectual Property Office's roundtable on Tegernsee. Former guest Kat Tara Aaron (Aaron Sanders PLLC) has a new blog, IP Breakdown, which you are invited to check out here (good luck, Tara!)


"Curated media" is a phrase that may not mean much to all of the readers of this weblog, but it's a term that many law firms may encounter with increasing frequency as they fret and fumble over the online content of their newsletters, blogs and other literary cyber-excrescences.  As Curated Media's website declares, "we understand the importance of finding the right words. The online world rewards meaningful content that's informative, structured and easy to find. At Curated Media, we take care of our clients' content so they have a valuable presence on the Internet". Curated Media's website is here -- and the Curator-in-Chief of this Glasgow, Scotland-based enterprise is another former guest Kat, Kate Manning.  Good luck, Kate!

Supreme achievement.  Mr Justice Peter Charleton of the Irish High Court, a notable IP enthusiast, Fordham IP Conference participant and decisor of cases that have featured in this weblog (most recently on the assessment of an account of profits for unintentional passing off in McCambridge v Brennan, here), has been appointed a judge of the Irish Supreme Court. The appointment gives particular pleasure to this Kat, who had the pleasure of teaching him back in the 1970s, at Trinity College, Dublin. Good luck, Peter!

WIPO's Reputation
Assessment Team

Many readers of this weblog have already earned the sincere and irrevocable gratitude of our friends at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) for having completed the UN agency's survey on stakeholder perceptions of WIPO. If you have not yet done so, WIPO would be most grateful if you were able to spare 10 minutes of non-billable time to complete the survey before Friday, 4 July 2014. The survey is available in English, French, and Spanish.  All information gathered will be treated confidentially and reported in aggregate form only, says the WIPO Reputation Assessment Team.

Does my blog look big in this ...?  According to a recent newsletter from the Kat's friends at Petosevic, between 16 May and 2 June, the Romanian customs officials seized goods believed to be counterfeit and the total value of which was estimated at around US$ 1 million. The haul included no fewer than 2,400 slimming pants bearing the DRX Levine’s and California Beauty mark.  The seizures were made at the port of Constanta, in eastern Romania. The goods apparently originated in China and were intended for the Romanian market. This Kat keeps thinking that there is a bigger story here.

Paper can be speedy too

Speedy renewals. Yesterday the UK Intellectual Property Office (UKIPO) launched its new online patent renewal service, which seeks to make it simpler, quicker and cheaper for businesses and inventors to renew their patents.  According to the UKIPO press release, ‘Renew a Patent’ is one of the Government’s 25 exemplar projects which focus on redesigning and rebuilding government services, helping to transform the way people use services online. Apparently more than 400,000 patents are renewed every year and more than a quarter of paper submissions have errors (you can still renew by paper: details here).