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Friday felicitations

By Johanna Gibson, David Pearce, Jeremy Phillips and Ilanah Simon.

42 is the number of forthcoming events listed on the IPKat's side bar (free events are marked in BLUE, as usual). Do check it out! And if you are someone who is hoping to have an event posted, can you please try to get the relevant information into a single neat little paragraph rather than leaving the Kats to puzzle it out for themselves.

Congratulations are due to IP Finance, a sister blog of the IPKat, which this week gained its 400th email subscriber. If you're not an IP Finance reader, you are still totally welcome to attend the next FREE and OPEN TO EVERYONE seminar on 14 July, when Australian IP practitioner and emeritus IP Finance blogger Julian Gyngell will be speaking on the new Australian Personal Property Securities (PPS) regime and its impact on IP finance. Further details will be posted on the IPKat side bar once they're available.

The IPKat's Excess Copyright friend Howard Knopf advises him that these days it's not just online computer games that have an end-user licence agreement (EULA). Even cats have them, according to this item picked up from Wendy Seltzer. The moral of the story is simple. If you buy a hypoallergenic genetically modified moggie, you may be limited as to what you can lawfully do to it. The best advice is to find a stray one and be nice to it.

Bosnia-Herzegovina is the latest country to sign up for the Convention for the Protection of Producers of Phonograms Against Unauthorized Duplication of Their Phonograms of October 29, 1971 (the "Phonograms Convention"). This convention comes into effect for B-H on 25 May 2009, making a total of 77 signatories.

Eagle-eyed Kristof Neefs (Altius) picked up this item from the European Parliament on access to documents. Key quote:

"?Members also call the Commission to make available all documents related to the ongoing international negotiations on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) - which will contain a new international benchmark on intellectual property right enforcement".

You can't do that, can you, murmur the Kats! That will lead to transparency in policy-making. Surely you can't expose so fragile a creature as a representative democracy to such dangerous stuff ...

Full post as published by IPKat on March 13, 2009 (boomark / email).