Harbor

A harbor or harbour (see spelling differences), or haven, is a body of water where ships, boats and barges seek shelter from stormy weather, or are stored for future use. Harbors and ports are often confused with each other. A port is a facility for loading and unloading vessels; ports are often located in harbors.

Harbors can be natural or artificial. An artificial harbor can have deliberately constructed breakwaters, sea walls, or jettys, or they can be constructed by dredging, which requires maintenance by further periodic dredging. An example of an artificial harbor is Long Beach Harbor, California, which was an array of salt marshes and tidal flats too shallow for modern merchant ships before it was first dredged in the early 20th century.

In contrast, a natural harbor is surrounded on several sides by prominences of land. Examples of natural harbors include Sydney Harbour, Australia and San Francisco Bay, California.

Artificial harbors

Artificial harbors are frequently built for use as ports. The oldest artificial harbor known is the Ancient Egyptian site at Wadi al-Jarf, on the Red Sea coast, which is at least 4500 years old (ca. 2600-2550 BC, reign of King Khufu). The largest artificially created harbor is Jebel Ali in Dubai. Other large and busy artificial harbors include:

Law of agency

The law of agency is an area of commercial law dealing with a set of contractual, quasi-contractual and non-contractual fiduciary relationships that involve a person, called the agent, that is authorized to act on behalf of another (called the principal) to create legal relations with a third party. Succinctly, it may be referred to as the equal relationship between a principal and an agent whereby the principal, expressly or implicitly, authorizes the agent to work under his or her control and on his or her behalf. The agent is, thus, required to negotiate on behalf of the principal or bring him or her and third parties into contractual relationship. This branch of law separates and regulates the relationships between:

In 1986, the European Communities enacted Directive 86/653/EEC on self-employed commercial agents. In the UK, this was implemented into national law in the Commercial Agents Regulations 1993.

Patent attorney

A patent attorney is an attorney who has the specialized qualifications necessary for representing clients in obtaining patents and acting in all matters and procedures relating to patent law and practice, such as filing an opposition. The term is used differently in different countries, and thus may or may not require the same legal qualifications as a general legal practitioner.

The titles patent agent and patent lawyer are also used in some jurisdictions. In some jurisdictions the terms are interchangeable, while in others the latter is used only if the person qualified as a lawyer.

Qualification regimes

In Europe, requirements for practising as patent attorney before national patent offices should be distinguished from those needed for practising before the European Patent Office (EPO) or the Eurasian Patent Office (EAPO). On the national level, the requirements are not harmonized, although across the 28 Member States of the European Union respective professional qualifications are mutually recognised to some degree.

Agent (video game)

Agent is an upcoming stealth action video game developed by Rockstar North. In July 2007, Sony announced that Rockstar was working on a new exclusive game for the PlayStation 3, but details of the project, including its title, were not announced until June 2009 during the Sony press conference at E3.

The game is set during the Cold War and will take players into "the world of counter-intelligence, espionage and political assassinations", according to a Rockstar press release. Rockstar has yet to reveal any details regarding the setting other than that it will be set in the late 1970s.

Announced in 2007 exclusively for PS3, little was heard about the game after 2009 and it was thought to have been cancelled, although Take-Two confirmed in May 2011 that Agent was still in development. In July 2013, Take-Two Interactive registered two trademarks for the game.

Development

Sony Computer Entertainment announced that Rockstar Games was working on a new franchise for the PlayStation 3 in July 2007. Michael Shorrock, SCEA's director of third-party relations, wrote on the official US PlayStation blog, "as part of our long standing relationship with Rockstar, and the incredible success for both companies with the cultural icon that is Grand Theft Auto we've agreed to the PlayStation exclusive rights of the next great franchise from the Rockstar studios." Nothing more was revealed about the new franchise except the clarification that it would not be L.A. Noire. According to Shorrock, "Rockstar really wanted to make a game that you can truly only do on PS3" and added that the reason Sony locked the IP down as an exclusive deal was because Sony believed the franchise would "set the bar for the rest of the industry." Ben Feder, former president of Rockstar parent Take-Two Interactive, said that the game would be "genre-defining" and "a whole new way of experiencing videogames that we haven't really seen before."