Wednesday whimsies

Are there better ways to train a TM examiner?

This Monday the IPKat published a guest piece y Ana Paula Affonso Brito, "Speed and efficiency in processing IP applications: has Brazil got what it takes?", in which attention was directed at Brazil's attempts to address its appalling record of official tardiness in processing IP applications. He has now heard from Ana's colleague Eduardo Magalhães Machado that the Brazilian Patent and Trade Mark Office, no doubt in response to Monday's post, has posted on its website an item of information headed "Backlog marks falls for the first time in four years". The office achieved this through the astoundingly original and never previously tried solution of, er, increasing the number of examiners (from 66 to 102) and improving the infrastructure that supports the technical examination process. Trade mark examination  speed is still nowhere near acceptability for Madrid Protocol purposes, the average time of first examination being an astonishing 43 months.

Pressing prospect.  This Kat is delighted to learn that the UK Intellectual Property Office is currently recruiting for a newly-pressed new press person.   According to impeccable and verified sources within the IPO, the ideal candidate will possess either interest or experience in IP [Merpel thinks that both/and would be best!] as well as writing expertise -- perhaps acquired through a few years on a local news desk or in the trade media.  This, the IPO apologises, is only an entry level position, ideal for those starting out in life or trading down from a more demanding job. The IPKat reflects on the fact that many a fine writer -- and here Charles Dickens comes immediately to mind -- has started his career as a reporter.  For further details, just click here.

Around the weblogs.  The IP Draughts weblog is never short of entertainingly informative material to read, so this Kat was not surprised to find Mark Anderson's recent post on royalty-stacking clauses well worth the effort to peruse. Elsewhere, on the 1709 Blog the increasingly-productive Marie-Andrée Weiss writes up a French Cour de Cassation ruling that a corporation cannot be the author of a copyright work. There's also a new blog on the block this week, Italian IP enthusiast Claudia Roggero's DANDI.MEDIA, which promises to address Claudia's favourite topics: film, product placement and copyright infringements. "It is basically an Italian blog", she explains, adding that she has posted some articles in English too. Good luck, Claudia!

The sweater's fine: the name's the issue.  Via this Kat's old friend Steve Preece, now a son of the soil in England but a Canadian through and through, comes this link to "Nordstrom removes Cowichan name from sweaters", a CBC News item from British Columbia about how A call from the CBC prompted the US-based Nordstrom department store chain to remove the name Cowichan from an item in its online clothing range. The item in question, described as a Cowichan sweater, was not made by weavers from the Cowichan First Nation on Vancouver Island.  A quick skim of the web suggests to this Kat that the Cowichan First Nation will be keeping the legal profession busy for quite a while since there is more than one large country beginning with the letter "C" in which the name Cowichan appears to be in commercial use in relation to knitwear ...