Friday fantasies

The IPKat team takes this opportunity to wish everyone a good Friday, or a good Good Friday, depending on their preferences.  Oh, and don't forget to check the Forthcoming Events page, will you ...?

Crown copyright: another
great British invention ...

Earlier this week, in "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet ... IPO search for Latin lovers?" (here), the IPKat reported on the beta version of Ipsum, the UK Intellectual Property Office (IPO) system for inspecting patent documents online. There has been some discussion, and some misunderstanding, regarding the non-availability of documents generated by third parties.  The IPKat can clarify the position as follows:

* The beta version of Ipsum currently online includes documents in which there is Crown copyright, but not documents in which it does not hold the copyright.  There is however a Consultation on Amending the Patents Act to provide for online patent document inspection here. The proposal is that the Patents Act 1977 be amended to provide for a relevant exception to copyright which would let the IPO introduce online inspection services for documents sent to it but in which it does not own the copyright. If you think this is a good idea, you can tell the IPO by email to this address by Tuesday 26 April. There's not much time to act, so please get a move on! 

* the name Ipsum represents “the sum of information on patents”. In Latin means "the very thing itself". This is a nod to the Latin origin of the word “patent” and the fact that the service allows users to see the very documents themselves [so long as there's no copyright issue ...].

The IPKat has also heard that someone down in the Land of the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) has taken an interest in Ipsum, which has already been linked from WIPO's very own Patentscope "Gateway to patent services and activities". According to the IPKat's reliable source,

"For all international applications where we’ve had a notification of entry into the GB national phase, there is now a link from the “national phase” tab of WIPO’s Patentscope PCT publications and public file inspection database to the national phase details for that application. See, for example here.  We also provide similar links for other Offices where we have the necessary information to link directly to the relevant systems for other national phases. We hope that the coverage will further increase soon".

Patent cliff ...

...copyright Cliff

Around the weblogs. The 25th in PatLit's PCC Pages series, posted here, deals with some of the issues involving the transfer of proceedings between the cheap and cheerful Patents County Court for England and Wales and the not-so-cheap but increasingly cheerful Patents Court. IP Finance carries another insightful piece from fellow Kat Neil J. Wilkof, "What To Do in the Face of a Patent Cliff: A View from Medium Pharma", here, with coda here, which is well worth thinking about. Afro-IP asks whether the emergence of South Africa's Office of Companies and Intellectual Property Enforcement (OCIPE) is a positive step or not much more than a rebranding exercise, while in IP Tango Patricia Covarrubia reports that Mexico is the latest jurisdiction to lament the ill effects of piracy and smuggling on its economy (of which these activities are estimated to account for some 30%).

Looking for something to read this weekend? The Annual Report of the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market (OHIM) for 2010 is now available online from OHIM here.  According to sources close to the throne,

"... The report reflects the Office’s wide range of cooperation activities, and has been prepared in the form of a website, making extensive use of video and graphics in an effort to make it appealing to a wide cross-section of the public. 

As well as the usual range of statistics, the report includes a six-minute video summary, a video message from the President, and interviews with senior staff and many of our stakeholders including national IP offices and user representatives. 

This year’s report celebrates the cooperation between OHIM and all our stakeholders in trying to make the IP system work better. In particular it charts the progress being made in partnership with them on Cooperation Fund projects, which is designed to deliver common tools and standards that will shape the future of IP in Europe for the next decade".

For those who like to be reassured that there is always someone working harder than themselves, this month's new reading matter also includes The Workload of the Court of Justice of the European Union, here.