Save the IPO!

The IPKat has just read the tragic news on Wales Online that up to 100 jobs are to be axed in the UK's Intellectual Property Office in Newport. Now part of Whitehall Department for Innovation, Universities & Skills, the IPO is at the mercy of the vicissitudes of the global economic downturn.

Right: don't let the IPO go like lambs to the slaughter! Save our IPO!

Noting that there had been a drop in income from patent and trade mark applications, an unnamed spokesman said:

“We had to have a look at how to save money and we will look at ways we can assist people. It is a difficult decision for us to make.”

The IPKat is incensed.  You can't just measure the performance of Patent Office in financial terms. The IPO is a collective repository of a large amount of experience and seasoned judgment; it is tremendously user-friendly and has done far more in its advisory and pastoral role to foster a sympathetic environment for protection and promotion of IP than have the men from the Ministry.   Merpel agrees and says, why not ask the taxpayer if he'd rather subsidise all the scams, jaunts, freebies, porno-videos and third homes enjoyed -- and that's the right word -- by our Parliamentarians, as he is at present, or preserve the national treasure that is our IPO?