Friday festinations

The IPKat's superbly-updated 'Forthcoming Events' feature, which occupies a large slice of space on the left-hand side-bar of this weblog's front page, currently lists 31 conferences, seminars and events for your delectation. FREE events are listed in a cheerful blue.


It's new address time for the Class 46 European trade mark weblog. Up till now it has only been accessible via the somewhat cumbersome class46.blogspot.com, but now that site has been given the far classier class46.eu tag. Run by a ten-person team of bloggers from around Europe, Class 46 has posted over 1,000 items of European trade mark news in its first year, all of which are searchable and carry links to their sources.

Bad news for Bad Danes and their nefarious accomplices: earlier this week the Danish government adopted an important Bill setting out to strengthen the fight against violators of IP rights. This Bill is part of the Danish government's list of initiatives which have been set out specifically to strengthen efforts to prevent counterfeiting. Full details are available from the Class 46 weblog here -- or you can read it in the original Danish here.


Good news lurks around the corner for anyone interested in design protection in Oman. According to a WIPO Press Release the Sultanate of Oman has acceded to the Geneva Act of the Hague Agreement Concerning the International Registration of Industrial Designs. The operative date for this Agreement to come into force for Oman is 4 March 2009.