Firm

The owner of the trademarks "Miss Austria", "Miss Oberösterreich" (Miss Upper Austria) and further Miss-marks granted a licence to the defendant to use these marks for five years. These trademarks – as one can guess – are registered for an organisation handling beauty contests and the elections of the most beautiful women in an area. The contract contains a clause that allows immediate cancellation of the licence if there is violation by the licensee of any contractual duty. It also prohibits competition by the licensee in this field outside the licence and the use of similar trademarks to those licensed.

The Brazilian PTO celebrated a remarkable achievement at the beginning of the new year. In just four months, the office managed to reduce the patent backlog by 14%. Further important milestones towards eliminating the backlog for good are expected to be reached throughout the year, as the office intends to reduce the backlog by 80% by 2021. This was all possible due to a pioneer project called the Preliminary Standardized Office Action Program, implemented in September 2019. Once the project is successfully completed, the PTO estimates it will take under 24 months to examine new applications.

In the US-China Phase One trade deal signed on January 15 2020, notable agreements on patents mostly relate to pharmaceutical sectors – Articles 1.10, 1.11 and 1.12. It is possible that these articles may also have implications for other sectors, which remains to be seen in the subsequent implementation. In addition, the provisions on judicial enforcement and procedures should benefit all patent owners. More technical issues such as indirect infringement or changes to the judicial review of invalidation decisions are not addressed. This update provides a brief overview of these key changes.

Attempting to establish a trademark infringement test, on December 18 2019, the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) released draft Criteria for Determining Trademark Infringement (Consultation Draft), inviting public comments.

Japan has suffered from trade secret theft by Korean companies who enticed Japanese employees. It significantly damaged national interest. Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corp. (now Nippon Steel) sued Posco for trade secret infringement and sought around 100 billion JPY in damages. Posco agreed to pay 30 billion JPY and the parties settled. Toshiba sued SK Hynix for trade secret infringement and sought around 110 billion JPY in damages. SK Hynix agreed to pay around 33 billion JPY and the parties settled.

The Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IPOPHL) has just issued Memorandum Circular No. 2019-024 entitled Amendments to the Rules and Regulations on Inter Partes Proceedings, which will take effect on February 15 2020. Its objective is to provide speedy, quality and effective legal remedies to resolve IP disputes. The major amendments are as follows: