Wednesday whimsies

8,000 up! It is again with gratitude, and not a little bewilderment, that the IPKat records that this blog now has its 8,000th email subscriber.  It seems like only yesterday that he and Merpel were gazing at the stats, willing the first 49 subscribers to magic themselves into what, in 2003, seemed like the impossibly high figure of 50.  Merpel joins him in expressing a huge dollop of thanks to all their readers and in hoping that we'll have lots of fascinating and fun topics to write about in the coming months and years.

Nicola's coat of arms

Kat to run the IPO.  It is with an unashamed mixture of happiness and sadness that the IPKat informs readers of the impending departure of one of the rarest and most unusual Kats, Nicola Searle (alias the Katonomist).  With effect from 1 January 2013 [how nice to be able to start one's new job on a public holiday!], Dr Nic steps down from the elevated status of Kathood to take an altogether lesser position of running the UK Intellectual Property Office.  Officially her title is "Economic Advisor", so as not to upset the folk who have been working there for years and think they're in charge, but we Kats all know who's the real boss!  Merpel and the rest of the team join the IPKat in wishing Nicola the best of luck in her new position, in which we are all sure she will perform outstandingly.

Picking guest Kats isn't easy:
only one in four knows the
difference between 'licence'
and 'licence'

Kat team news.  Following Nicola's departure (if you read from the bottom of the page upwards, please see the item above) and the expiry of the term of duty of our three guest Kats, the IPKat's blogging line-up is coming up for a bit of a reshuffle.  The new team of six regulars plus three guests which will be serving the IP community from 1 January for the following six months is currently under wraps, but will be unwrapped on 1 January for your edification.  Without giving away any secrets, the IPKat can tell you that Nicola's replacement and two of the three guest Kats have already been sorted out.  The process of appointing even a new guest Kat can be quite difficult: some candidates have plenty to say but can't quite say it, while others have little to say at all but can do it in real style.  Some are fixated on one issue or one IP right, while others omnivorously consume anything remotely resembling the subject. We try to get the right blend and let's hope that, for all our sakes, we succeed.

Don't be fooled by its
cute appearance: the
Pixie-Bob is highly astute
and can even be trained
to write US patent claims ...

Kitto patent? no, Ditto.  Katpats all round for Jody Giesser (DSM) and Wolfgang Flasche (immatics biotechnologies GmbH), who were both swift to spot In Re Frank Robert Ditto -- a decision in which the US Court of Appeals for the Federal [or, given the patent, should that be 'Feral'?] Circuit breed dismissed an appeal against the USPTO's Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences' refusal to grant Ditto's application for a patent. The alleged patentable invention was a domestic cat breed produced by mating a Bobcat, Lynx, or Bobcat Lynx species with a domestic cat. The examiner rejected all twelve claims of the patent because, inter alia, the claims were anticipated by prior art references and were directed to non-statutory subject matter under 35 U.S.C. § 101. Pixie-Bobs, as some such cats are called, are well-established in the prior art (as evidenced by articles on the Seattle Times and Bellingham Herald). This decision has been welcomed by all manner of felines, many of which have expressed the relief that, whatever may be the case in unitary Europe, whatever they get up to in the barn on a romantic night is not going to produce any infringing products in the US.


Only licensed, from now on.  The IPKat's eagle eye fastened on to a recent news item, "Armenian Ministry of Economy to Use Only Licensed Software", which appeared in a recent Petosevic newsletter. Apparently, on 30 September the Ministry signed an agreement with Microsoft under the terms of which it would start using only licensed software packages, "thus making it the first Armenian government institution to start using only licensed programs".  This agreement follows an obligation which was accepted by the Armenian government upon itself as long ago as 2007 to use only Microsoft’s licensed programs, as part of the country's copyright protection campaign. What has the Ministry been using for the past five years, this Kat wonders ...