On Oct 28, 8:04*am, Matty F wrote:
This is in the nature of a d-i-y project, typical of New Zealanders.
Perhaps some of you in the UK know of Boxpark.

Boxpark director Roger Wade seems peeved that a temporary mall has
been built in Christchurch NZ after some 6000 earthquakes have
demolished much of the city..
The mall has been built out of shipping containers.
Does Boxpark want money for this rather obvious idea?
Is Boxpark subject to earthquakes? I think not.
Can somebody please tell Roger Wade to pull his head in?

http://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/newsdeta...storyid=207705

The director of a British company taking legal action against
Christchurch's City Mall project wants an apology.

The Restart project is being accused of copying a pop-up mall in
London.

Boxpark director Roger Wade says members of the Restart team visited
the Shoreditch mall in April to inspire ideas.

He says he wants to stress they aren't doing this for financial gain.

"We just want the Restart initiative and the Government who's backing
the Restart initiative to recognise, as already has been recognised in
emails that we've recived from them, that this idea to create a pop-up
mall from chipping containers came from Boxpark."

Mr Wade says if this happened, he would be happy to sit down with
Restart organisers and talk it through.

A quick search has turned up his patent application:

http://worldwide.espacenet.com/publi...=2472501A&KC=A

http://tinyurl.com/44hsoe4

The patent is incredibly poor (and I've read a lot of patents), but it
has probably been prepared by a professional patent lawyer (though I
would have expected a half-way decent one would have sent him away,
rather than taken his money)

BUT - note the "publication date" - 2011-02-09

That date is always 12 months after the "filing date" (the date you
actually sent the stuff to the patent office).

Basically once you "file", you have 12 months of radio-silence to
start exploiting your idea - until it's published.

But you still haven't *got* your patent.

There then follows another 12 months for anyone to challenge the
patent, by either making the patent office, the patent holder, or his
lawyer aware of any prior art.

A common trick in making a challenge is to make the patent holder's
lawyer aware - he/she then has a duty to pass that information on to
the patent office - for which he/she may then try to charge the client
for the cost of the lawyer's time!

Just sending a photo in should do the trick - particularly if the date
can easily be verified e.g. a newspaper photo or bit of tv footage.

This isn't yet a done deal - the patent isn't yet "granted".