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The 5th Annual "Meet the Bloggers" event, masterminded this year by Seattle Trademark Lawyer's Michael Atkins, takes place on Monday 18 May 2009 at the new time of 6pm to 9pm at Pier 70 (right), on Seattle's lovely waterfront (details here). "Meet the Bloggers" -- which coincides annually with the International Trademark Association's Meeting -- is open to everyone who writes or reads intellectual property blogs. If you need any more information about this year's event, email Mike.  Last year's session in Berlin was great fun and this year's should be too. See you there?


The Afro IP intellectual property blog, which tries its hardest to scrape together interesting bits of news and comment from one end of Africa to the other, has finally notched up two milestones: its 500th article was posted earlier this week and the blog has also picked up its 200th email subscriber. The blog team, ably led by Darren Olivier, is always on the look-out for IP news, views and information -- and is willing to publish it in French or any other widely-understood language as well as in English. You can view Afro-IP here.


Another blog to hit the 200 email subscriber mark is PatLit, the patent litigation weblog. Since dispute resolution involving patents is an increasingly international phenomenon, the team welcomes short newsy items, preferably linked to reliable sources, from patent litigators, mediators and arbitrators wherever they are based.


Multilingual Latin-American weblog IP Tango has shaken up its writing team but would like to hear from readers (ideally from that area) who are involved in Latin American IP and would like to write the occasion piece for this growing weblog.  If you're interested, email Aurelio here and tell him the IPKat sent you. You can see IP Tango for yourself here.

Afro-IP, the intellectual property blog which is aimed specifically at IP legal and commercial developments within the vast enigma which is Africa, has just undergone a template face-lift. Gone is the reversed-out white-on-black text; in its place is an altogether lighter, brighter backgrop. You can check it out here.

The IPKat's blogging team is about to change. Professor Johanna Gibson is stepping down (thanks, Jo, for your support and good luck for the future with all your endeavours!) and in her place the Kats welcome Birgit Clark (right).  Birgit is known to many IPKat readers for her work on the Class 46 European trade mark blog: we wish her the best of luck too.


Meanwhile, IPKat team blogger Jeremy has been trying to sort out a convenient way of bundling all the blogs he's involved with into one neat site. Thanks to fellow blogger Peter Groves he has now done so via Pageflakes. If you want to see which blogs Jeremy is working on, and who he is working with, all you have to do is click here.

A naturally retiring and modest moggie, the IPKat would not dream of publicising his own achievements. Merpel however thinks it should be trumpeted out: in October the IPKat weblog received 74,314 visitors -- and that's apart from the nearly 2,500 email subscribers and the 1,700+ readers via RSS feeds.

Right: A Happy Cat, by Brenda Garacci

Thank you so much for visiting this blog -- and thanks also for your comments. Team member David's two posts (here and here) on the referral of questions on software patenting to an Enlarged Board of the European Patent Office have already attracted almost 50 responses, and more are still coming in. All of us in the IPKat team appreciate reader responses and interaction, even if it's often quite critical (and sometimes even correct ...)


Meanwhile, the IPKat notes that the IP Finance weblog, launched in January as a means of raising awareness of financial issues involving intellectual property rights, has just welcomed its 250th email subscriber. This blog has been doing its best to alert IP readers to the threats and problems arising from UNCITRAL's proposed guidance on the securitisation of intangible assets, but it covers lots of other money issues too.


Another weblog to occupy a little bit of limelight is Class 46, the specialist European trade mark blog put together by members and supporters of MARQUES, the association of European trade mark owners. According to MARQUES' November News Channel its Publications & Website Team is

"currently monitoring the progress of ... the Class 46 weblog, which currently contains nearly 700 separate, searchable items of news including notes on recent decisions, laws, official notices and commercial news. Class 46 is interactive, so you can post comments (all comments are moderated). The Class 46 weblog is free to all, and carries no advertisements or pop-ups. Class 46 is available at http://class46.blogspot.com/".