Friday fripperies
It's that time of the week again - and the IPKat has a few little bits and pieces to keep you productively thinking over the weekend period.
Google patent search. The IPKat's valued friend John Halton has just drawn his attention to the Google patent search facility at www.google.com/patents. It seems to be a Beta site, so things can only get beta ...
The front page is clean, crisp and easy on the eye; you can search under Web, Images, Video, News, Maps and More ... and there's a continuously changing selection of five featured patents if you just fancy a gentle browse. Google offer over 7 million patents, though that's not the same as 7 million inventions. The Patent Search Help facility even helps laymen make some sense of their search results once they've got them.On the subject of cats, Merpel got 224 hits for 'cat' patents in the remarkably cool time of 0.0 seconds. Many thanks, John, your recommendation.
RSS feeders. The IPKat received lots of emails from people who read this blog via RSS feeds and just wants to say a huge thanks to all of you who contacted him. Not being a big RSS man himself, he's surprised at how many people do.
Public image = public domain. The IPKat's friend, worthy copyright guru Ben Challis (left), has forwarded him some fascinating information concerning Jin Youhzi (right), brother of the last Emperor of China, Aisin Giorro Pu yi, who lost a claim to protect his late brother’s image rights. Jin, now aged 88, filed the suit in Bejing objecting to an official exhibition in the Forbidden City. This exhibition, which focused on his brother's life, allegedly violated the image rights of the deceased and hurt his survivors. The exhibition was in the former imperial palace of the Ming and Qing dynasties. He sought closure of the exhibition, legal costs and public apologies. On 14 July the Beijing Dongcheng District People's Court rejected the claim and the Beijing No. 2 Intermediate People's Court has dismissed the appeal: the late Emperor was a public figure whose life was closely connected with China’s history and was thus in the public domain.More information here and here. Another Chinese privacy case - noted by the IPKat here.