Congratulations to the new Silks

In England and Wales a competition is held to select the next batch of Queen's Counsel, barristers whose seniority and expertise is recognised and who become entitled to bear the letters "QC" ("KC" when the reigning monarch is a King) after their names. Details of the competition and how it is run can be found on the QC applications website here. For the current competition, covering the years 2009-2010, there were 275 applicants, of which 129 were successful.

The IPKat is always delighted when intellectual property experts and enthusiasts receive this honour and is thus pleased to offer his congratulations to two stars in the British IP firmament, whose success has been reported today:

* Piers Acland (right, of 11 South Square), who has appeared in these recent IP cases;

* the IPKat's friend Michael Edenborough (Serle Court), who has kindly drawn the attention of IPKat team member Jeremy to several significant decisions that were worthy of report in the European Trade Mark Reports.

Having had to read all the names backwards, the IPKat is worried that he might have missed someone out, in which case he's sure he'll hear about it soon enough.