Thank you to all authors, commentators, audience who made the 2026 annual workshop a wonderful exchange of experience, ideas, and arguments. Muito obrigado to Univ of São Paulo law school, colleagues in other departments, and esp Vitor Ido and his team of fantastic students for making it happen 🙏

'What is perhaps remarkable about the Exeter cuts is that they are targeted at some of the university’s most successful departments, many of which turn over a profit even after they have made enormous and increasing contributions to the central university budget.' Read, rage and weep.

I am BEGGING people - think tanks, governments, random organisations - to DATE YOUR REPORTS WHEN YOU DO THE PDFS. It should not be THIS HARD to find a BLOODY PUBLICATION DATE. You might think everyone will remember the magical day you published it years later. But you are delusional.

"The new law will give Prime Minister Mark Carney's cabinet authority to greenlight any pesticide that ministers feel is in the interest of economic or national food security. The legislation doesn't define or clarify what those security interests would be."

Health minister meets with pesticide industry lobby group before and after weakening pesticide rules to allow exemptions for 'national security or food security' reasons without defining what that means. Scientists and public health experts not allowed to testify. Hmmmm. www.cbc.ca/news/politic...

EU Parliament passed the NGT Regulation today, dismissing the efforts to re-introduce exclusions from patentability. Meanwhile, the precision breeding regulation in England is facing new hurdles after the High Court grants leave to claim judicial review: ipkitten.blogspot.com/2026/06/eu-p...

Belfast rally against racism

Call for article submissions from the Journal of the History of Biology for a special Topical Collection on Histories, Cultures, and Practices of the Botanical Sciences. link.springer.com/collections/...

When I meet people in the real world, they have 0% - and I mean zero - knowledge of the disaster unfolding in British HE. Even if their kids are actually at uni. They look at me as if I've gone mad. This is why. 👇

Labor law x patent prosecution: "An arbitrator ruled Monday that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office "committed a clear and patent breach" of agreements with the union representing some of its employees when the office eliminated telework arrangements last year at the urging of...Donald Trump."

Echinacea plant named 'Raspberry Ripple' US #PlantPatent No. 37,468 (granted today)

And the shirts say “This is not a jersey” on the back:

Mandevilla plant named 'KLEMS21085' US #PlantPatent No. 37,453 (granted today)

The future of the 200-year-old original Bramley apple tree is in question after the garden where it stands has been sold to a private buyer by Nottingham Trent University. NTU insist that the transfer came with obligations for continued public access for events: www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

My review of the edited collection, Intellectual Property and Cannabis, is now online with the Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice: academic.oup.com/jiplp/advanc...

Sometimes I think I've seen it all, then an editor will provide a house style guide that contains the most horrifying citation system I've ever seen.

Geranium plant named 'Balgerpur103' US #PlantPatent No. 37,442 (granted today)

This is obscene

Dahlia Plant Named 'KLEDH24716' US #PlantPatent No. 37,431 (granted today).

We’re hiring! We are recruiting for a Lectureship in Global History of Science to join our Department from September 2026. For more info and to apply, please visit: https://bit.ly/3R94V58 Closing Date: 9th June 2026 #WeAreSTS #Science #Historyofscience #Globalscience

Finally i learned a lot from this by Elizabeth Paton. People have extremely strong views about mangoes as.ft.com/r/f6498b9d-9...

I was very interested to see that the US Dept of Justice's Antitrust Division decided to weigh in on the Corteva v. Inari patent infringement dispute, citing competition concerns about restricting public access to deposited seed samples: ipkitten.blogspot.com/2026/05/us-d...

Hemerocallis (daylily) plant named ‘Bright Note’ US #PlantPatent No. 37,422 (granted today) The variety was a cross between 'Busting Out All Over' and 'Bitsy' (both unpatented).

My editorial in JIPLP offers the provocation: could debates about plant variety rights be improved by drawing more analogies to copyright? academic.oup.com/jiplp/advanc...

"Xynisteri originates from Cyprus and was first introduced to Australia in 2018 by researcher Dr Alexander Copper. ... In recent years, water security had been flagged as one of the "main concerns" for wine grape growers wanting to produce in the future." www.abc.net.au/news/2026-05...

"Mr Cha said he was concerned that people selling poor quality versions of the Tiger Bomb would ruin his brand. He said he had already told several cafe owners that he considered the beverage to be his intellectual property and was now looking into protecting it." www.abc.net.au/news/2026-05...

If you happen to be in Belfast on the 20th, I will be delivering a lecture on the crisis of neo/liberal legalism and international legal thought. To register: www.qub.ac.uk/schools/Scho...

Fixed it 👍

Heliconia plant named 'Love Bird' US #PlantPatent No. 37,406 (granted today) The variety was bred in the Netherlands.

After much anticipation, it is my pleasure to announce the winners of the IPKat Book of the Year Awards 2025. Congratulations to all the winners! ipkitten.blogspot.com/2026/05/ipka...

After much anticipation, it is my pleasure to announce the winners of the IPKat Book of the Year Awards 2025. Congratulations to all the winners! ipkitten.blogspot.com/2026/05/ipka...

'It is a 113-million-year-old bone of contention.' What's not to love about this return of the Irritator story? ('Palaeontologists studying the skull in 1996 dubbed the genus Irritator – reflecting the annoyance they felt when they discovered the snout had been tinkered with').

Woo buddy. We have a whopping 1,281 new design patents for this Tuesday and I'm hungry, so we're starting with D1123299 issued for a potato. To be clear, this may be a potato part or a processed potato, but it isn't a potato. #WordsHaveMeaning #DesignPatents

Hemerocallis (daylily) plant named 'Honey Barbeque' US #PlantPatent 37,395 (granted today)

Genuinely one of the most infuriating things about the UK.

📣 We're #Hiring! #ERC Consolidator Project BOTLEG at @ruhr-uni-bochum.de is recruiting: - 1 PostDoc ➡️ jobs.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/jobposting/9... - 2 PhDs ➡️ jobs.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/jobposting/c... 📅 Deadline: 25 May 2026 #PhDSky #HistSci #PhilSci #HPBio #EnvHist #DigitalHumanities #AcademicSky

Astilbe plant named 'Dragon's Lair' US #PlantPatent 37,379 (granted today) The variety was a cross between 'Dark Side of the Moon' (PP 35,461) and 'Delft Lace' (PP 19,839)

A procedural dispute about how the Irish authorities pursued the registration of Irish Grass Fed Beef as an EU geographical indication, which has been misleadingly reported as an objection to Northern Ireland being included in the protected territory: ipkitten.blogspot.com/2026/04/eu-g...

NEW: The privacy regulator raised concerns Australia teen social media tech trial "overstated" how well these technologies protected people's privacy — especially since it didn't technically test the products' privacy protections or assess them against Australian privacy law. www.crikey.com.au/20...

Full-funded (home or international) collaborative PhD studentship (Kew and Royal Holloway, University of London) available. Deadline 8 May. Topic: ‘Just acquisitions? Law and ethics over time in Kew’s overseas plant collecting history’ #Skystorians

Hibiscus plant named 'Garnet Globes' US #PlantPatent No. 37,369 (granted today)

This week's news and updates from the IPKat: ipkitten.blogspot.com/2026/04/frid...

Echinacea plant named 'Knock 'em Red' US #PlantPatent No. 37,360 (granted today)

another Good Friday in Derry 🌞

They're just like me 🥲

Heliopsis plant named ‘Forged in Fire’ US #PlantPatent No. 37,356 (granted today)

We are looking for a 3-year postdoc to work on a self-defined research project in environmental history that places electronic or digital technologies at the center of its historical inquiry. More details in the announcement linked to below. #envhist

Actually, the DFAT summary shows the situation is quite different: "While Australia will protect the EU GI, Prosecco, Australia has also succeeded in retaining the rights of Australian wine producers to use Prosecco as the name of a grape variety in Australia." www.dfat.gov.au/trade/agreem...

Australia and EU reach agreement on trade deal. Looks like they compromised on geographical indications: Australian wine can no longer be called Prosecco but Australians can keep using feta, halloumi and parmesan. www.politico.eu/article/aust...