Tuesday tiddlywinks

Current trade mark forecasting techniques
leave something to be desired ...

To boldly go -- and quickly too! Every day the UK's Intellectual Property Office (IPO) seems to be getting more adventurous. Now this Kat finds out that, not content with being a repository of IP Past and an administrator of IP Present, the IPO is investing in IP Future. Acccording to information received from the IPO itself:

"The IPO is about to commission a piece of research into Trade Mark Forecasting. The objective will be to understand the drivers of UK IPO trade mark applications and forecast the number of applications over a 12 month horizon.  Over the past decade the IPO has witnessed a surge in trade mark applications, and the trend appears to be continuing.  We would like to gain a greater understanding of the factors underpinning this growth and to develop a forecasting model which will give indications of future levels of demand to inform resource planning and development. 

Are you or your organisation interested in bidding for this work? [If so, you'd better be pretty quick to do something about it because] expressions of interest should be sent to Julia.leighton@ipo.gov.uk by Friday 13 November [2015, in other words, the end of this week ...]" 

Cracking Ideas. The very same IPO which got a plug above for its exciting initiative in trade mark application forecasting, and which will be further plugged below for its keen concern about your problems with trade barriers, is responsible for the furtherance of its ménage à trois with Wallace and Gromit by featuring them front and centre of its Cracking Ideas website.  The objective of this exercise -- which will soon be discussed in a guest blogpost -- is to encourage innovation and creativity among the innocent youngsters and schoolchildren. This Kat has long wanted to know (i) how the effectiveness of this initiative is measured and (ii) whether the association of innovation with Wallace and Gromit continues to foster the notion of inventors as harmless crackpots, in the tradition of Professor Branestawn, William Heath Robinson, Rube Goldberg and the like -- great fun, but not what you'd call the sort of cool, inspirational model to which young creators might wish to aspire. Thoughts, anyone?

As readers of IP Finance have by now discovered, the European Commission is planning to launch free trade agreement negotiations with Australia, New Zealand, Tunisia, Morocco and India in the near future. In conjunction with this [and just in case it isn't planning to leave the European Union any time soon, thinks Merpel], the UK Government is conducting a business survey about existing barriers to trade in those countries and has indicated that it is keen to hear from businesses about challenges they face in these markets. Say the IPKat's friends in the UK IPO:

"We are very keen to hear from you about challenges you face in these markets. Your responses will help us identify issues that could be addressed through trade negotiations, including those related to intellectual property at question 14.  We would encourage you to complete it by Friday 27 November.

If you'd like to participate and tell the IP all about your challenges, real or imagined, you will find a convenient link here.  

Around the weblogs.  Dr Seigen Tsukuda (Ohno & Partners) has provided The SPC Blog with an extremely helpful guide to patent term extension in Japan (with a little aiding and abetting from fellow Kat Darren).  Over on the MARQUES Class 46 trade mark blog, Tiina Komppa explains how figurative marks PROBANKA and PROBANK can be likely to cause confusion in some situations in Finland but not in others (the words are likely to confuse late-night bloggers, regardless of the goods and services for which they might be used, this Kat adds). SOLO IP blogger Barbara Cookson seeks out cunning ploys for saving on her IP journal subscriptions.  Finally,. for those who appreciate a jolly good rant, our US friend and colleague CE Petit's Scrivener's Error waxes lyrical on the theme of copyright debate in which the voice of the author is silenced -- incidentally picking up on this classic 2013 Katpost from Neil.  

This Kat salutes his old friend and fellow student Steve Saxby (currently Professor in the Institute for Law and the Web, Southampton University Law School), who as founder editor of the Computer Law and Security Review (CLSR) has had the satisfaction of seeing it become the first technology law journal in the world to be indexed in the latest Thomson Reuters Journal Citation Reports Social Sciences Edition. Says Steve: 

“Society today is inextricably connected to the online world. The news these days is full of talk about controversial issues concerning the need for digital regulation, protection of data and the nature of our privacy expectations. The inclusion of CLSR in the JCR is testament to the vital academic importance of this field of information technology law in today’s world".