Exclusive: Australia’s Qantm IP has sights set on India
Australia-based intellectual property services group Qantm IP is in talks to enter the Indian legal market as a part of its ongoing expansion plans, Managing IP confirmed on yesterday, October 19.
The group has approached at least one law firm in India to evaluate its options in the months following India’s decision to liberalise its legal sector earlier this year.
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European litigators seek to match German UPC dominance
Netherlands-based Arnold & Siedsma joined the European Patent Litigators Network, a move one of its partners says will help the nation compete at the Unified Patent Court.
The EPLN is a group of law firms set up this year to offer joint litigation services at the UPC. The network has member firms in France, Germany, Italy, and now the Netherlands.
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UPC Court of Appeal grants Sanofi extra time in first ruling
Defendants should get extra time to respond to documents when plaintiffs don’t upload relevant annexes along with their claim, the UPC Court of Appeal ruled in its first-ever decision.
In an order issued on Friday, October 13, and seen by Managing IP, a three-judge panel granted Sanofi’s request for an extended deadline to respond to Amgen’s infringement lawsuit.
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Other articles published by Managing IP this week include:
Weekly take: A&O’s super-merger could bridge firm divides
Interview: João Negrão on EUIPO finances, SEPs, and AI
Evidence inconsistency behind multi-million patent win, says partner
Law firms: corporations better placed to take AI plunge … for now
Six-month review: are foreign firms flocking to India?
From HR to PR: how one firm is developing its own AI
Elsewhere in IP
CRISPR 'waitress' row
The former head of finance at Dublin-based ERS Genomics, which licenses intellectual property related to CRISPR technology, has brought a discrimination claim against the company at Ireland’s Workplace Relations Commission.
Tracey McGann cited conversations with ERS chief executive Eric Rhodes, including one exchange where she had to remind him she was “not a waitress” during a company dinner.
“I stood up to go to the bathroom, Eric was there with the guys ... [he] turned around to me and said we’ve no red wine,” McGann told the WRC, according to a report by The Irish Times on Tuesday, October 17.
“I turned around to him and said: ‘I’m not a waitress.'”
Nobel prize winner Emmanuelle Charpentier founded ERS to license IP related to CRISPR/Cas9 gene-editing technology.
UPC’s language turn
The Unified Patent Court’s local division in The Hague changed the language of proceedings in one case from Dutch to English at the request of a litigant, it was confirmed on Wednesday, October 18.
The move signals the court’s willingness to conduct proceedings in English and could help lure international litigants, a lawyer representing plaintiff Plant-e Knowledge said on LinkedIn.
Plant-e sued Barcelona-based Arkyne Technologies in July and selected Dutch as the language of proceedings. Arkyne then requested the court change the language of proceedings to English.
TRIPS flexibilities
The US International Trade Commission published a keenly awaited, 500-page report on TRIPS flexibilities and COVID products on Tuesday, October 17.
However, the ITC declined to take a position on the debate over whether to extend the TRIPS waiver.
A debate is ongoing at the World Trade Organization over whether to extend the scope of the waiver, which only covers vaccines, to drugs and diagnostics.
TM incontestability
A false declaration to the USPTO in pursuit of incontestable status isn’t sufficient grounds to cancel a trademark, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled on Wednesday, October 18.
A former attorney for trademark owner Great Concepts filed a false statement at the USPTO as part of an application for incontestable status for the company’s ‘Dantanna’s’ mark.
The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board can only cancel marks where they are obtained fraudulently, the Federal Circuit ruled.
IP waiver?
A leaked copy of the negotiating text for a new pandemic treaty includes provisions to waive IP rights, it has been reported. The text was prepared by an intergovernmental negotiating body set up by the World Health Organization.
IP owners are alarmed at the text, even though the wording refers mostly to voluntary measures.
Access to medicine advocates, meanwhile, feel the language is too weak to force any meaningful sharing of IP during a pandemic.
That's it for today, see you again next week.
