MARQUES in Porto I

IPKat team member Jeremy is in Porto till Friday morning, where he is attending this year's autumn conference - the 21st - of MARQUES, the Association of European Trade Mark Owners (click here for full programme). The IPKat will be bringing you all the exciting news each day.

Right: hopeful MARQUES conference participants form an orderly line for spare tickets for the big match.

The main excitement at the moment is the impending European football championship match between local team Porto and English contenders Liverpool. A ten-strong delegation from MARQUES will be attending this match, no doubt with a view to gaining first-hand experience of the trade mark licensing, kit sponsorship and other IP issues.

The conference proper commences tomorrow morning, but this afternoon was taken up with meetings of MARQUES' large and growing number of project teams. One proposal that is likely to be implemented in the near future is that of granting access to the organisation's Case Law Database to deserving non-members such as students, academics, judges, trade mark examiners and appropriate government and public bodies.

Left: secretly the IPKat awaits his late call-up into the Liverpool squad

While the scheme's final details are not yet known and the registration form for approved non-member users has yet to be drafted or put on to the MARQUES website, the IPKat is pleased to keep a record of anyone who is interested and wants to be informed when eventually the scheme is up and running. At present the database, which contains around one and a half thousand European decisions (national and pan-European), is growing at the rate of around15 cases a month. To express your interest, email the IPKat here.