IPKat is a law blog founded in June 2003, and dedicated to

intellectual property law Intellectual property (IP) is a category of property that includes intangible creations of the human intellect. There are many types of intellectual property, and some countries recognize more than others. The best-known types are patents, ...

(IP) with a focus on European law.Alex Newson, Deryck Houghton, Justin Patten, ''Blogging and other social media: exploiting the technology and protecting the enterprise'', Gower Publishing, Ltd., 2008, , p. 6.IPKat
web page. Consulted on March 24, 2007. The content comprises news of recent judicial rulings, decisions of

patent A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an sufficiency of disclosure, enabling discl ...

and

trade mark A trademark (also written trade mark or trade-mark) is a form of intellectual property that consists of a word, phrase, symbol, design, or a combination that identifies a product or service from a particular source and distinguishes it from oth ...

granting authorities, primary and secondary

legislation Legislation is the process or result of enrolling, enacting, or promulgating laws by a legislature, parliament, or analogous governing body. Before an item of legislation becomes law it may be known as a bill, and may be broadly referred ...

, practice and procedural notes and recent publications, together with comments.

Contributors

A feature of the blog is the expression of opinions through the often contrasting observations made by two fictional

cat The cat (''Felis catus''), also referred to as the domestic cat or house cat, is a small domesticated carnivorous mammal. It is the only domesticated species of the family Felidae. Advances in archaeology and genetics have shown that the ...

s, the ''IPKat'' himself and his female companion ''Merpel''. A third feline, the ''AmeriKat'', analyses IP developments in the U.S. IPKat was founded by Jeremy Phillips, who had previously launched the ''Managing Intellectual Property'' magazine and sold it to Euromoney Publications in 1991. As of December 2017, the contributors included Annsley Merelle Ward (a.k.a. "the ''AmeriKat''"), and Neil J. Wilkof. Johanna Gibson stepped down in January 2009, as did David Pearce in February 2011, Jeremy Phillips in 2015, and Mark Schweizer at the end of 2017.

Awards and recognition

In July 2005, IPKat was named in '' Managing Intellectual Property'' magazine (which Phillips founded fourteen years earlier) as one of the 50 most influential people in the IP world. In August 2008, IPKat was voted top of the 'IT law and governance' category in

Computer Weekly ''Computer Weekly'' is a digital magazine and website for IT professionals in the United Kingdom owned by Informa TechTarget. It was formerly published as a weekly print magazine by Reed Business Information for over 50 years. Topics covered wit ...

magazine's 2008 IT blog awards. In the same year, a legal book reported it as being "one of the best-known and most successful of all law blogs". In January 2010, the United States

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...

selected the IPKat for inclusion in its historic collections of Internet materials related to Legal Blawgs. In December 2010, IPKat was selected as one of the

American Bar Association The American Bar Association (ABA) is a voluntary association, voluntary bar association of lawyers and law students in the United States; national in scope, it is not specific to any single jurisdiction. Founded in 1878, the ABA's stated acti ...

's Top 100 Legal Blawgs.http://ipkitten.blogspot.com/2010/12/wednesday-whimsies.html, IPKat, 1 December 2010. Consulted on February 16, 2011.

Trademark

IPKat is a registered

Community Trade Mark A European Union trade mark or EU trade mark (abbreviated EUTM; named ''Community Trade Mark'' (''CTM'') until 23 March 2016) is a trade mark which is pending registration or has been registered in the European Union as a whole (rather than on a ...

(Registered Number: 008150286).

References

External links

*{{Official website, 1=http://www.ipkitten.blogspot.com, name=The IPKat Internet properties established in 2003 Intellectual property law blogs