Happy new year!

On behalf of Merpel, the AmeriKat, Tufty, Birgit, David, Mark, Matt and Neil, the IPKat takes this opportunity to wish all of his readers a very happy new calendar year, starting in just a few short hours time -- unless you are Japanese, an Australian, or similar -- in which case you are ahead of our time, if not your own.

The IPKat is also very excited to tell everyone that, just a few short hours ago, he welcomed his 5,000th email subscriber (we're up to 5,001 now, and rising); his Tweets have a following of 1,477 -- almost exactly the 738 he had on the last day of 2009.  And so far this blog has been visited over 689,000 times, a decent rise over 2009's figure of 643,451.

All the Kats are united in thanking you, our readers, for your leads, your thoughts, your constructive comments and your attention -- as well as your participation in the wider IP community.