Today marks the century point since the declaration of Bulgarian independence in 1908. Obviously it is a holiday here, but with the usual low-key Bulgarian outlook.
From Focus – “Bulgaria celebrates the 100th anniversary of its Declaration of Independence today. Exactly a century ago, on 22 September 1908, the independence of the country was declared at the Church of the 40 Martyrs in the old Bulgarian capital of Veliko Turnovo.”
I went to my usual fruit market yesterday and noticed someone in a new position that was clearly not an official place in the market. Today when I went to the market, I found only this debris where the seller formerly was.
08.21A rain of umbrellas
“Cyclops” wraps up this week. 300+ shots of a humanoid creature are done. And finally the dog days of August can be enjoyed. We’re off to Greece tomorrow. The next time I’m posting will be from a beach sipping a fine bottle of local Greek beer.
08.12Trademark … Not
Not much of a post… just a rant.
Believe it or not, Bulgaria has some interesting rules on intellectual property. Shocking I know. As you may know, I have a publishing company. Eastern European Concepts and Consulting. Or EECC for short. I was able to get a .bg domain quite easily for this company because according to Bulgarian rules you can only have an Internet domain if it is your name or your company’s name. However, I also wanted an Internet domain that was more appropriate for publishing comics. I wanted the domain www.comics.bg. In order to get this domain I either had to publish a magazine entitled www.comics.bg or trademark the name www.comics.bg. Absolutely stifling rules, but them are the rules. So last year we applied for the trademark. And then we started publishing a magazine entitled… www.comics.bg.
Last week, I received my official rejection letter from the patent and trademark office of Bulgaria. Now I have a month or two to continue using comics.bg. After which I will now need to show my continued publication of www.comics.bg over the last year.
The .bg domain names are some of the most spam free domains around, now you know why.