Wednesday whimsies

Around the weblogs.  Over on the increasingly busy SOLO IP blog, IPKat team member contrasts the fortunes of IP practitioners in small practices with those of medical practitioners: which has had the better deal over the past few decades?  Having survived a brief flurry of comments as to the distinction between liqueur and liquor, Class 46's Laetitia introduces us to the HEATSTRIP dispute, in which a naughty agent who tries to register his principal's trade mark, having lost before the OHIM Board of Appeal, gets a second helping of comeuppance from the General Court. On IP Finance, Rob Harrison marks the launch of the Australian Global Innovation Index: phrases like "packed with metrics", "best practice" and "degree of scepticism" give a hint of what you might just find there. "Taylor Swift is incredible" is the title of a guest piece written by Richard Tomasi and hand-crafted by our own Eleonora. Never heard of Taylor Swift (pictured, above left, with the IPKat)? Then take a look.

Come to the BioHub. This Kat has never been to a BioHub; indeed, until last night be had never even seen the word. However, he has discovered a good way of getting into one. There's an IP seminar & networking event coming up on 30 September 2014 at the BioHub at Alderley Park, Cheshire. It's masterminded by Appleyard Lees and this Kat has a feeling that former guest Kat Robert Cumming has had something to do with it. The star attraction is Judge Richard Hacon, who was appointed as specialist circuit judge of the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court (IPEC) for England and Wales when most of us were sharpening our teeth knives in anticipation of the seasonal turkey in December 2013. There will be some war stories and law stories, plus all the usual delicacies.  This event is free to all comers and will take place in the conference centre by Appleyard Lees' office at the BioHub at Alderley Park. The fun starts at 4.30 pm with the quaint tradition of registration and carries on till the bar runs dry networking is brought to a seemly conclusion. To attend, email Sara Baines at sara.baines@appleyardlees.com to register your interest.  Space is limited so do book early. The Appleyards and Lees apologise to anyone who will miss out on the event due to the patent examinations, explaining that Judge Hacon "has limited availability to speak in the North". 

Now here's a brand
name that summarises
this Kat's sentiment ...

This Kat, born and bred a Londoner, has just been reminded by Richard Pringle (Head of Validation Services, Valideus Ltd) that the priority period for .LONDON domains -- which gives priority to categories of potential registrants including owners of UK registered and unregistered trade marks -- closes on 31 July. Beyond that date, as Richard delicately puts it, "it will be a straight case of first-come, first-served".  The .LONDON registry website is here and its priority rules are here. He adds:

"Our view of the situation is that with over 50,000 applications expected for .LONDON domain names in the pre-launch period alone, the domain will quickly reach critical mass and be a familiar sight online and potentially a valuable domain suffix for brands. Furthermore, with this volume of applications there will be many that are for trade marks in the offline world. These will include registrations of descriptive dictionary words, trade marks in different sectors, trade marks used by brand interest groups, fan sites and gripe sites; as well as some trade marks registered for cybersquatting". 

While his memory is good enough to recall the days when the choice of top-level domain was really quite important, it's not good enough to recall the last time he actually typed a whole domain name into his browser, or even paid attention to the top-level domain: his habits are determined by long familiarity with the advantages of search engines and his skill, whether intuitive or intellectual, in identifying the fastest way to find his target sites [very good, says Merpel, but you still can't find your way round the OHIM and EPO websites ...]. Are .LONDON and its equivalents really important any more? Or has the time of the prestigious or catchy domain name come and gone? Do tell us what you think.