Nice work if you can get it

The simplest pleasures are those that masquerade as work when, as we all know, they are really work avoidance schemes. Thus it has been that the IPKat, under cover of serious intellectual property research, has been playing happily and harmlessly with a new toy. It's Roberts Mardula & Wertheim's new search tool, which allows anyone to search Nice Agreement IDs so that they can classify goods and services for trade mark registration (and indeed opposition and cancellation) purposes. Just type the word of your choice here and you'll get a list of every occurrence of it as a Nice ID (the current WIPO search tool only allows searching by class). This neat facility is absolutely free - and you can have it as it comes or as an Excel sreadsheet.

Right: Cat o'nine tails (from gilliancards)

Putting it through its paces, the IPKat typed in "cat" and got a very large number of hits, not least because the search software finds every occurrence of the letters "cat", regardless of their context, Thus he retrieved, in addition to Cat o' nine tails (no comment), Catechu, Lubricating oil, Cattle stunning appliances and Wind socks for indicating wind direction. "Dog" was less exotic, though the search did throw up IDs for such jolly items as Dog whistles, Firedogs and Dog collars. This search facility was drawn to the Kat's attention by lawyer and trade mark author Jon Roberts, who is related by marriage to the celebrated Jessie N. Roberts, whose International Trademark Classification: a Guide to the Nice Agreement (3rd edition) is published by Oxford University Press (see IPKat post here).

Work avoidance rituals here, here and here