A personal message

Following major surgery, IPKat team member Jeremy’s mother Constance passed away this morning, Sunday 27 December, at the age of 88.

In keeping with traditional Jewish practice, Jeremy will be observing a full week of morning. During this period he will not be posting items on this or any other weblog and will not be checking his email accounts. Details of arrangements with regard to prayers at the mourners' house may be found here.

All change!

The IPKat's friend Chris Rycroft, the publisher at Oxford University Press who was responsible for launching the Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice and for building up OUP's now-formidable list of intellectual property and competition law books, has left OUP for a new and exciting challenge. He has just moved into private legal practice with London solicitors Lewis Silkin, with whom he will be working in the field of practice development.

Right: of the 1oo or so hits secured by a Google Image search for "Chris Rycroft", this was the one the Kats liked best.

Meanwhile, the IPKat has learned that the hot-seat formerly occupied by Chris Rycroft at OUP will be filled by Luke Adams. No stranger to intellectual property law, Luke has been building up a long and lively list of IP titles for Edward Elgar Publishing. This company has worked hard to elevate the status of multi-authored collections of essays on contemporary IP law, of which the New Directions in Copyright series is an outstanding example.


Left: the "Luke Adams" Google Image search notched up over 2,000 hits -- of which this was the best likeness.

Both the IPKat and Merpel wish Chris and Luke good luck in their respective new ventures.