Only occasionally do we from the SCRIPTed management team take the opportunity to pen an Editorial, usually preferring to offer this particular soapbox to external experts from whom we wish to hear something about a matter of contemporary importance. This particular issue is unusual in that, including this short comment, which serves more as a noticia than a proper editorial, we have three contributions for the Editorial Section. The second, by Professor Graham Greenleaf, a member of our Advisory Board and long-time friend of SCRIPTed, outlines the “Unlocking IP” conference,1 which serves as the source of two reviewed articles and four internally assessed analysis pieces.2 The third editorial is a more conventional commentary which we were happy to accept from a young scholar from abroad.

The occasion of this issue is not only significant for its multiple editorials and its rather unusual size – it contains not only IP papers but the usual eclectic collection of excellent scholarship on topics ranging from international public health law, to nanotechnology governance, to software patents and wifis – it is also significant because it represents the last issue that will be brought live by our intrepid Managing Editor, Wiebke Abel, who, for two years and six issues, has competently and enthusiastically managed SCRIPTed through a turbulent period of restructure and growth. Her hard work and attention to detail will be missed, but, unsurprisingly, she has eased the potential dislocation of her departure by helping to recruit and train her replacement, in whom we have great confidence.

Continuing in this reflective vein, I am proud to report that, over the course of its six-year life, SCRIPTed has published 6 covers, 26 editorials, 80 articles, 58 analysis pieces, 7 reports, and 63 book reviews, plus the scholarship in this issue. As an open-access online journal, we are able to compile certain statistics on our readership, and I would like to thank the tens of thousands of readers who have, to date, visited SCRIPTed and read our articles. In the last month alone we have had thousands of visitors from over 20 countries around the globe, the most active users being from the UK, US, India, Canada, and Australia.

As regular readers will be aware, SCRIPTed now maximises the benefits and flexibility of being online by publishing time-sensitive pieces on an ongoing basis, with contributions being collated into three issues per year (April, August and December). Additionally, SCRIPTed is searchable on SSRN, Google, Direct Links, Wikipedia, Yahoo, and the Directory of Open Access Journals. We are also searchable on Bailii, and indeed, thanks to Wiebke, were the first journal on Bailii. Finally, SCRIPTed was ranked the top European English-language journal in the area of ICT law by academics on the Cyberlaw list (2008).

We hope you will enjoy this issue of SCRIPTed, as well as future issues, and we would be pleased to receive your comments and suggestions. Of course, your articles are always welcome.

1 “National and Global Dimensions of the Public Domain”, UNSW, 16-17 April 2009. For more on this conference, see http://www.cyberlawcentre.org/unlocking-ip/2009/ (accessed 31 July 2009).

2 Look to the December issue of SCRIPTed for more pieces from the Unlocking IP conference, as well as for further pieces from our own conference, “Governance of new Technologies: The Transformation of Medicine, Information technology and Intellectual Property”, University of Edinburgh, 29-31 March 2009. For more on this conference, see http://www.law.ed.ac.uk/ahrc/conference09/index.html (accessed 31 July 2009).