Newsletter No. 139
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ISSN 1460-7239 26th June 2003 No.139
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IN THIS ISSUE
EDITORIAL
MY FAVOURITE TIPPLES
By Mary Ellen Bates
FREEPINT BAR
In Association with Factiva
a Dow Jones & Reuters Company
JOBS
Development Records Co-ordinator
Video Cataloguing Librarian
Researcher/Analyst
Learning And Information Co-ordinator
TIPS ARTICLE
"Taxation Law Resources Online - Tax Doesn't Have to be Taxing"
By Jonathan Crowhurst
BOOKSHELF
"Unstructured Information Management - Search Report from InfoSphere"
By Martin White
FEATURE ARTICLE
"Searching Free Trade Mark Databases on the Web"
By Steve Van Dulken
EVENTS, GOLD AND FORTHCOMING ARTICLES
CONTACT INFORMATION
ONLINE VERSION WITH ACTIVATED HYPERLINKS
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>>> ABOUT FREEPINT <<<
FreePint is an online community of information searchers. Members
receive this free newsletter twice a month: it is packed with tips
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Joining is free at <http://www.freepint.com/> and provides access to
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EDITORIAL
It's like having your own gossip gopher. Darting around picking up on
key trends whilst having one ear out for tasty soundbites. In
truth, we didn't actually end up wearing our FreePint felt
fedoras, but we certainly feel we did a good job of reporting on the
SLA information conference in New York the week before last.
The Daily Dispatches from my colleague Annabel Colley are a pleasure
to read and each contains a good mix of opinion and emerging themes
from the conference, along with useful tips and a smidgen of gossip.
We managed to quiz keynote speaker Madeleine Albright, former US
Secretary of State, and interviewed a number of senior figures in the
information industry. You will shortly receive the transcript of our
first interview, with Factiva CEO and President Clare Hart. Annabel
certainly doesn't pull her punches, and weaves many of the questions
sent in by FreePinters into the interrogation. We're not shy about
asking tricky questions as you'll see shortly in the transcripts.
A big thank you to Factiva for sponsoring our attendance at the
conference. I'm sure you'll agree that their financial support has
meant that those who couldn't attend can feel part of the proceedings
by reading the dispatches and seeing the snaps.
The dispatches and photo montage are online now. Visit:
<http://www.freepint.com/go/b24333>
There's something for everyone in today's newsletter. We cover
taxation resources and trademark databases, along with plenty of tips,
jobs and reviews. So, we'd better crack on. We hope you enjoy it and
thank you to everyone who is helping to spread the word about
FreePint -- we're welcoming over 500 new readers this issue.
Cheers
William
William Hann BSc(Hons) MCLIP
Founder and Managing Editor, FreePint
Email: <william.hann@freepint.com> Tel: +44 (0)1784 420044
Free Pint is a Registered Trademark of Free Pint Limited (R) 1997-2003
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>>> FreePint Freedom of Information Exchange <<<
22nd July 2003, London, UK
This seminar will provide an overview of the Freedom of Information
Act. The session will cover: * practical issues to consider when
implementing FOI * discrepancies between the Data Protection and
Freedom of Information regimes * the role of the publication scheme
* records management issues; handling FOI requests * right of appeal,
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MY FAVOURITE TIPPLES
By Mary Ellen Bates
* I subscribe to Gary Price's weekly update, but I also read his
ResourceShelf blog <http://www.resourceshelf.com> almost every day.
He is a librarian's librarian.
* I also read Chris Sherman's SearchDay newsletter, to stay up-to-date
with trends in the search engine world
<http://www.searchenginewatch.com/searchday/>.
* I do a lot of public speaking and I like having unusual templates,
so I often use the free PowerPoint templates at
<http://www.websiteestates.com/ppoint.html>.
* Much of my work is focused on business research, so I search the US
Securities & Exchange Commission files. My favorite SEC search
tool is <http://www.edgariq.com>.
* Because sometimes I just need to broaden my horizons, I read
Cory Doctorow's blog daily <http://boingboing.net>.
Mary Ellen Bates is an independent information professional,
specializing in business research, and a frequent international
speaker and writer. She is based in Washington DC
<http://www.BatesInfo.com>.
Submit your top five favourite Web sites. See the guidelines at
<http://www.freepint.com/author.htm>.
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As a member of the InfoPro Alliance, you will receive our
monthly e-mail newsletter telling you about the latest enhancements to
Factiva.com, product tips, TechTalk and links to our new online
sessions for advanced searchers.
<http://www.factiva.com/infopro>
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FREEPINT BAR
In Association with Factiva
a Dow Jones & Reuters Company
While we were in New York filing our Daily Dispatches from the SLA
conference <http://www.freepint.com/go/b24333>, FreePinters forged
ahead with helping others with their tricky Web-related research.
A few topics still require some answers, so can you help with any
of the following?:
Do you know how to measure or prove the value of a self-funding
knowledge centre <http://www.freepint.com/go/b24110>? Do you have
thoughts about the information provider OneSource, either publicly
or privately <http://www.freepint.com/go/b24223>?
On information-related topics, there were some useful meta-directories
suggested for RSS feeds <http://www.freepint.com/go/b23996> and
someone is looking for specific scientific journals/magazines
providing RSS feeds - can you help?
<http://www.freepint.com/go/b24311>?
On more general business topics, do you know of new-business
development initiatives, particularly in the services sector
<http://www.freepint.com/go/b23997>? What about research on
benchmarking customer service expenditure in the retail sector
<http://www.freepint.com/go/b24108>?
Are you aware of statistics on the UK household furniture luxury goods
market <http://www.freepint.com/go/b24048> or the number (rather than
value) of cross border transactions either by nation or
internationally <http://www.freepint.com/go/b24120>? Anyone run a
survey in a staff magazine <http://www.freepint.com/go/b24106> or
could you find out when the term 'Corporate Governance' was first
used <http://www.freepint.com/go/b24314>?
Finally, there were some useful tips for Webmasters and users about
avoiding right-hand truncation when printing pages
<http://www.freepint.com/go/b23770>.
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FREEPINT JOBS
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at <http://www.freepint.com/go/b24310> and last week's at
<http://www.freepint.com/go/b24180>.
Here are some of the latest featured jobs:
Development Records Co-ordinator
You will provide records management support and advice, primarily
to regulatory specialists teams.
Recruiter: Amgen Limited
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Video Cataloguing Librarian
Enthusiastic librarian with video archiving skills to work with the
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Learning And Information Co-ordinator - East Mids
Lib/Info Co-ordinator for Careers Guidance Service, East Mids,
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[The above jobs are paid listings]
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TIPS ARTICLE
<http://www.freepint.com/issues/260603.htm#tips>
"Taxation Law Resources Online - Tax Doesn't Have to be Taxing"
By Jonathan Crowhurst
By way of introduction, I am a Library Assistant to the Tax Law
department at Norton Rose Solicitors in London
<http://www.nortonrose.com/>. I would like to talk briefly about some
of the more specialist electronic resources we use within the firm,
and more specifically about the free online information that may be
useful either in practice or if you have to deal with tax issues on a
personal level - such as a Tax Return or inheritance tax issues. None
of the information below should be a substitute for qualified
advisers, of course. Details of the legal and accounting professional
bodies are included at the end of this article.
Taxation Online
===============
The Law
-------
Tax law is created by the legislation of national governments and
for the European Community Member States, the European Parliament.
The UK Parliament debates tax legislation in the Commons and the Lords.
These debates are published in Hansard
<http://www.parliament.uk/hansard/hansard.cfm>. The Treasury Select
Committee deal with the expenditure, policy and administration of HM
Treasury, the Board of the Inland Revenue and other public bodies such
as the Bank of England and the Financial Services Authority
<http://www.parliament.uk/parliamentary_committees/treasury_committee.cfm>.
The European Commission deals with community tax issues and there is a
specific Directorate for Taxation at
<http://europa.eu.int/comm/taxation_customs/whatsnew.htm>.
In the US, Congress works in a broadly similar way to the UK system
and the Library of Congress provides access to US legislation on tax,
such as the recent Sarbanes-Oxley Act <http://thomas.loc.gov/>.
UK Government Departments
-------------------------
The main government department in the UK dealing with taxation
collection and implementing legislation on Tax, National Insurance and
so on, is the Inland Revenue
<http://www.inlandrevenue.gov.uk/index.htm>.
In the United States the Internal Revenue Service (IRS)
<http://www.irs.ustreas.gov/> performs a similar function.
The Inland Revenue's web site has a number of really useful features
which I refer to frequently when dealing with information requests
from fee-earners. However, unless you know what you are looking for it
is probably best to start with their A-Z site index, which is easy to
scroll through <http://www.inlandrevenue.gov.uk/nav/index.htm>. For
professional users of the site, the practitioners area contains a lot
of useful guidance including inspectors manuals, recent legislation
and statistics
<http://www.inlandrevenue.gov.uk/menus/practitioners.htm>. The press
releases page is very useful and the archive can be searched from 1998
<http://www.gnn.gov.uk/gnn/national.nsf/
9ddbc45f958c5511802565f40075e4d6/406c3ef1b81db7c780256caf004bba11?OpenDocument>.
Each spring, the Budget microsite is heavily used - this year's is at
<http://www.inlandrevenue.gov.uk/budget2003/index.htm>. The Revenue
issues consultation documents
<http://www.inlandrevenue.gov.uk/menus/consult.htm> on dealing with
specific areas, and the documents can be downloaded as PDFs. Inland
Revenue booklets contain clear guidance on various tax and national
insurance issues, so we frequently order the latest versions from
their publications catalogue
<http://www.inlandrevenue.gov.uk/leaflets/index.htm>.
HM Treasury is the department which sets the fiscal policy for the
United Kingdom, delivering the government's objectives
<http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/>. Again, the site map is probably the
best place to go for an overview of where things are located
<http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/sitemap.cfm?requesttimeout=1200>. The
press releases section, archived to 1997, is very informative about
current policy and initiatives
<http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/Newsroom_and_Speeches/newsroom_index.cfm>.
The Budget for the past years to 2000 can be reviewed in detail and
printed at <http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/budget/bud_bud03/bud_bud03_index.cfm>.
You can receive email alerts from this site for news releases.
The Treasury has also published a summary document about the Euro
which details Mr Brown's five economic tests for entry and government
policy on Euro entry
<http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/documents/the_euro/euro_index_index.cfm>.
Finally, HM Customs and Excise <http://www.hmce.gov.uk/> deals with
VAT and Duties issues. It publishes Information Notices, VAT and
non-VAT booklets which carry the force of law, and I visit their
updates <http://www.hmce.gov.uk/recent/index.htm> section every week
to check on current policy and updates to VAT notices, etc.
Tax Cases Online
================
Tax Cases dealt with by HM Customs and Excise Special Commissioners
and the VAT Tribunals can be searched for on the Court Service web
site <http://www.courtservice.gov.uk/>, while the European Court of
Justice deals with cases that reach the European Court
<http://curia.eu.int/en/index.htm>. Here you can search for current
case law of the Court of Justice (ECJ) or Court of First Instance
(CFI) <http://curia.eu.int/en/content/juris/index.htm> and view
forthcoming cases at the Diary, which I check on a weekly basis
<http://curia.eu.int/en/actu/calendriers/index.htm>.
Published Legislation
=====================
HMSO prints specific legislation on Tax, such as the annual Finance
Bills - the legislation derived from each year's Budget, which are
eventually given Royal Assent as Finance Acts - and other specific
Acts of Parliament such as the recent Income Tax (Earnings and
Pensions) Act 2003. These can be viewed and printed at
<http://www.hmso.gov.uk/>. Statutory Instruments from 1987 can also be
searched and printed <http://www.legislation.hmso.gov.uk/stat.htm>.
You can follow the progress of a Bill through Parliament on this web
site <http://www.parliament.uk/bills/bills.cfm> and track its status
during its reading. Parliament also publishes research papers before
the second stage of a Bill's reading and those from 1998 onwards can
be viewed online
<http://www.parliament.uk/parliamentary_publications_and_archives/research_papers.cfm>.
Professional Bodies
===================
The main ones for UK law are the Law Society
<http://www.lawsociety.org.uk/> and the Bar Council
<http://www.barcouncil.org.uk/>.
The Chartered Institute of Taxation (CIOT)
<http://www.tax.org.uk/> and the Institute of
Chartered Accountants for England and Wales (ICAEW)
<http://www.icaew.co.uk/> are the main professional bodies for tax
technicians and accountants respectively. Both sites contain technical
releases on accounting standards and professional practice. The CIOT
has information on how to find a chartered tax adviser
<http://www.tax.org.uk/showarticle.pl?id=160&n=350>, as well as its
other key role of putting forward its views to the UK government and
European parliament on existing and proposed legislation
<http://www.tax.org.uk/index.pl?section=89>. ICAEW has information on
how to find an accountant
<http://www.icaew.co.uk/index.cfm?AUB=TB2I_11379,MNXI_11379&route=11295,P,11379&tb5=1>,
and technical releases relating to accounting standard setters such as
the Accounting Standards Board <http://www.asb.org.uk/about/index.html>,
as well as comments on proposed government legislation
<http://www.icaew.co.uk/policy/index.cfm?AUB=tb2i_11367,MNXI_11367&tb5=1&fuseaction=tech>.
Concluding remarks
==================
So, there is much available online for those researching tax law and
practice. Many of the government web sites are worth perusing despite
some of them being not too well designed or easy to navigate.
Hopefully the sites I have identified here will help with tax law
research - the information is out there if you know where to look.
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Jonathan Crowhurst is a Tax and Competition Law Library assistant at
Norton Rose. He is going to City University in October 2003 to read an
MSc in Library and Information Studies. Jonathan graduated from the
University of Leicester in 1998 with a first class degree in Ancient
History and Archaeology and worked in market research and insurance
before deciding to become an information professional last year. He
enjoys re-enactment, history and genealogy - amongst other things - in
his spare time.
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Related FreePint links:
* 'Accountancy' articles in the FreePint Portal
<http://www.freepint.com/go/p1>
* Post a message to the author, Jonathan Crowhurst, or suggest further
resources at the FreePint Bar <http://www.freepint.com/bar>
* Read this article online, with activated hyperlinks
<http://www.freepint.com/issues/260603.htm#feature>
* Access the entire archive of FreePint content
<http://www.freepint.com/portal/content/>
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***Sue Hill Recruitment always need experienced lib/info people!***
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FREEPINT BOOKSHELF
<http://www.freepint.com/bookshelf>
"Unstructured Information Management - Search Report from InfoSphere"
By Martin White
Don't be put off by the title of this review. The subtitle to this 110
page report is "An overview of the Enterprise Search, Text Analysis
and Visualization Market" and if I were a lazy reviewer I'd stop at
this point and recommend that any one involved in selecting a search
engine or related product ought to buy a copy of this report at the
earliest opportunity.
However, FreePint insist that they need 500 words for a review, so
here are another 440. The report is published by the Swedish
consultancy Infosphere AB <http://www.infosphere.se> and I doubt that
you will have heard of them. The company offers risk and opportunity
assessments, strategy consulting, knowledge technology consulting and
political risk services. Infosphere is based in Stockholm and was
founded in 1999 (the same year as my company, Intranet Focus - a good
year!). The authors of this report, Magnus Stensmo and Mikael Thorson,
both come from research groups at IBM working on retrieval and
knowledge management, and it shows in the very high level of analysis
that they provide on the technology of search, and on the search
industry.
The report has three main sections. The first is an introduction to
the problems of searching unstructured information, useful to give to
managers who regard Google as the only search engine worth talking
about. This is followed by an overview of the main functionalities of
search, analysis, categorisation and visualization products, which is
easy to understand by readers without a background in information
science. In the final section, the authors profile 40 vendors of
search, text analysis and visualisation software. Note, however, that
this report is about enterprise search, and not public Web search.
For each company there is a very useful one-page summary that sets out
the products and technology they offer, financial information and an
over SWOT-style assessment of the vendor. There are also a number of
comparison charts for the search and retrieval, information
extraction, categorisation, clustering, taxonomy management and
visualisation sectors.
There is simply no other source of this information. Even the major IT
market analysts (such as Forrester and IDC) do not go into this level
of detail. In addition, the report is well written, can be understood
without any IT knowledge (the emphasis is on what the products do, not
how they do it) and is elegant enough to be presented to a senior
manager when the time comes to ask for budget. And the budget required
for this report is 295 Euros or US$325. The report can be ordered and
downloaded as a PDF from the Infosphere Web site
<http://www.infosphere.se/extra/news/?module_instance=2&id=31>.
To complement the report, the company has also set up a weblog at
<http://www.unstruct.org> which, in effect, updates the report and
also provides a forum for news and views on the unstructured
information management market.
There are some missing vendors, notably Mondosoft and Isys-Odessey,
and there is little discussion of multi-lingual retrieval. I would
also like to have seen more on IT platform requirements. But these are
small concerns and I have no hesitation in recommending this report to
any organisation trying to make sense of enterprise search.
> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Read a sample section of this report and purchase it online at:
<http://www.infosphere.se/extra/news/?module_instance=2&id=31>
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Martin White is Managing Director of Intranet Focus Ltd.,
<http://www.intranetfocus.com> which he established in 1999. Martin
consults on the design and management of intranets and extranets, and
the specification and selection of content management systems. He is a
member of the Editorial Board of the International Journal of
Information Management and since 2001 has written a monthly column on
intranet management issues for the US magazine EContent
<http://www.econtentmag.com>. He is a Visiting Professor at the
Department of Information Studies, University of Sheffield and is a
member of the Advisory Board of the CMS Evaluation Laboratory at the
iSchool, University of Washington, USA.
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Related FreePint links:
* Sample and purchase this report at:
<http://www.infosphere.se/extra/news/?module_instance=2&id=31>
* Find out more about this report online at the FreePint Bookshelf
<http://www.freepint.com/bookshelf/uim.htm>
* Read about other Internet Strategy books on the FreePint Bookshelf
<http://www.freepint.com/bookshelf/strategy.htm>
To propose an information-related book for review, send details
to <bookshelf@freepint.com>.
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FEATURE ARTICLE
<http://www.freepint.com/issues/260603.htm#feature>
"Searching Free Trade Mark Databases on the Web"
By Steve Van Dulken
There is a lot of advice on the Web about searching for patents, but
relatively little for another form of intellectual property, trade
marks. Numerous free databases and official gazettes are available on
the Web, but the problem for many is knowing how to search them
properly. The area is not as simple as it may seem. The searching
possibilities vary wildly from country to country. Even the spelling
varies: trade mark is British, trademark is American, trade-mark is
Canadian.
What are Trade Marks?
----------------------
A "broad brush" explanation (and national laws will vary) is that
trade marks are words, logos/shapes or combinations of them which
indicate the origins of the goods (more recently for services and/or
retailing). Rights to them for a country are given by patent offices
within the 45 classes of the Nice Classification
<http://www.wipo.int/classifications/en/nice/about/index.html>,
currently in its 8th edition. Applicants for rights must itemise
activities for the mark within specified classes. This allows
different proprietors to use the same mark in different activities and
avoids confusion for the consumer. Hence the word Swan is used by many
proprietors in different areas of activity. One country may register a
mark to one company but another country may register it to another.
There are limitations on permitted marks, including that they must not
be for a common surname or a place name, or be descriptive. Many
countries and organisations prohibit use of their insignia or
initials, and "famous names" cannot be registered in many countries,
such as St Michael in Britain. The presence of registered company
names may also prevent marks being registered.
Common law countries such as Britain and the USA allow unregistered
marks as well, the difference being that unregistered marks need
elaborate proof that they are known in the industry before litigation
can take place. Registered marks have R in a circle, while TM means
either that they are unregistered or that the registration of rights
is pending. Trade marks last forever if looked after properly: they
continue to be used, renewal fees are paid, are clearly marked as
such (in the USA), and do not become generic, like Hoover, thermos,
escalator or aspirin. All these were registered as trade marks and
have lost protection or may lose protection in the future. Local
jurisdictions will vary in how they apply laws and regulations. Anyone
seeking to register marks is strongly advised to use a trade mark
agent or attorney.
Problems in Searching
---------------------
Searching may involve looking to see who the proprietor of a mark is,
or if a mark already seems to be claimed, or to see what marks a
proprietor holds. The results may appear to be simple and
straightforward. A positive result for the first type may, perhaps, be
trusted, but the latter are more doubtful, and are best left to the
experts to ensure that a good search has been done. There are problems
such as words sounding the same but spelt differently. Often searching
the same mark or proprietor in databases for different countries
provides interesting results. Some databases allow phonetic searches,
or to search for translations (e.g. "hello" in various languages can
be searched for in the official US and Australian databases). Above
all, if the mark seems available for use in one country it may not be
available in others. There is no central database to search.
The British Library lists many databases and official gazettes
<http://www.bl.uk/services/information/patents/tmlinks.html>, most of
which are free. This includes some databases for domain names as some
wish to apply for marks for them, although they may be excluded from
registration (for example, the British Patent Office does not allow
trade marks ending in .com). The databases will contain currently
registered trade marks and may contain those pending registration and
perhaps recently discontinued registrations.
All these sites can be searched by words within the trade marks but
some cannot be searched by the shape. Suppose for example that you are
looking for a trade mark, real or conjectured, that involves a leaping
jaguar for cars. Clearly, if you cannot search by the image you will
have problems, although sometimes using the word describing the image
("jaguar") will show such marks. Such non-verbal concepts, classified
for such ideas as geometrical shapes, flowers, stars and so on may be
classified by the codes of the Vienna Classification
<http://www.wipo.int/classifications/en/vienna/about/index.html>.
Rainbows, for example, are coded as 1.15.1. The USA has a site,
<http://www.uspto.gov/tmdb/dscm/index.html>, which includes examples
of how they use a version of this classification (often making it more
detailed). Unless mentioned below it can be assumed that the sites
mentioned do not allow searching by the Vienna Classification. It may
be necessary to search other countries' Web sites -- or to pay on
priced sites -- to identify marks associated with a particular
country, as many will be registered across the world. Some trade
marks, though, apparently defy searching by anything other than by
proprietor: some countries permit trade marks for sounds, smells and
even gestures.
International Schemes
---------------------
Although national systems still survive, the Community Trade Mark is
available to cover the EU as a unitary right, meaning that if any
country objects then a mark is rejected. Its database
<http://oami.eu.int/search/trademark/la/en_TM_search.cfm> is easy to
use and is a good port of call for a new mark. It only began in 1996,
so older marks will not be on it unless they are reregistered through
it. This occurs when an old mark coming up for renewal is registered
through the system to prevent having to pay fees to many different
patent offices. The other major international scheme is the Madrid
Agreement. This dates back to 1891 and is limited to those who are
citizens, or residents, of member states. It is not unitary and so
even if one patent office objects to a mark, it may be registered for
other states in the scheme. Membership was traditionally mainly
continental Europe, but Britain joined the 1989 Protocol to the
Agreement, and the USA looks like joining soon. This is important, as
it limits the sort of material that you can expect to find. The
database is found via guest access to the Search IPDL link on WIPO's
page <http://ipdl.wipo.int/en/>. It contains those in force or which
have recently expired. Many more possibilities than with the Community
database can be searched, including the Vienna Classification and the
country of origin. The hit lists contain the images and applicant
names and are easy to look through.
Many (but not all) national databases include these internationally
registered marks on their databases, on the grounds that they can be
used to protect marks within that country.
National Databases
------------------
Turning to national databases, the United Kingdom has several trade
mark databases <http://www.patent.gov.uk/tm/dbase/index.htm>. In
common with several countries, it records relevant entries in these
international schemes. The numbers of such marks registered or applied
for are preceded by an E (if Community) or M (Madrid Agreement
Protocol). A major problem with the text database is that only the
beginning of words can be searched. The shape of trade marks again
cannot be searched for. An unusual and intriguing list is that of
rejected marks, with half the fun guessing why they were rejected.
The sites mentioned above are free. France has the official (priced)
IciMarques site <http://www.icimarques.com/>. Germany has a free (but
registration required) site
which can be searched by Vienna. Many other European countries have
(mostly free) sites. The Benelux trademark site
<http://register.bmb-bbm.org/SearchMaskMain.asp> doesn't only does
not allow searching by the Vienna class: nor does it allow searching
by the proprietor.
The United States has an official site, TESS
<http://www.uspto.gov/main/trademarks.htm>. Numerous fields can be
searched, including a more detailed version of the Vienna
Classification, where 1.15.01 (rainbows) is expressed as 011501 in the
"design code" field. Unfortunately the hit list merely displays words
and not the images involved - so they all have to be trawled.
To complicate matters, the USA also has state trade marks. Canada has
provincial trade marks as well as national trade marks, which can be
searched by Vienna Classification
<http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/cipo/trademarks/search/tmSearch.do>.
This database contains marks registered from 1979 (even if
later dropped) and so may be useful for searches for relatively old
marks. Australia
<http://pericles.ipaustralia.gov.au/atmoss/falcon.application_start>
also allows searching by the kind of image, but using its own
terminology, such as 'BIRDS: OWLS'.
Much trade mark litigation is also on the Web, and again the British
Library lists those it knows of at (with legislation)
<http://www.bl.uk/services/information/patents/tmlinks.html#leg>.
Manuals for trade mark applicants are also available there as the
following category.
The sheer number of databases that can be checked is bewildering. Not
everything is available online, and certainly not for free. Many
priced vendors offer databases. When it comes down to it though, the
experienced searcher will do a much better job than the novice in many
cases.
> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Steve Van Dulken has been working as an information expert,
specialising in patents, designs and trade marks, in the British
Library in London since 1987. He is the author of several books
including "Introduction to Patents Information", "Inventing the 19th
Century", "Inventing the 20th Century" and a book coming out this
autumn about inventions and the American Dream. The British Library
contains the national collection of patents from over 40 countries as
well as huge collections of books, journals, reports and conference
proceedings in science and technology. Its intellectual property Web
site is <http://www.bl.uk/patents>.
> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
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- Publication Date: 25th June 2003
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