Search results for

Biotechnology

Though the NBA seeks to promote its brand abroad, looking after its rights in the US is still a critical part of Kathryn Barrett Park’s job.

Increasingly, the decisions of the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reflect the need for patent applicants, particularly non US-based applicants, to be assisted by a lawyer who is a skilled linguist. This is a natural outgrowth of the now-established principle that patent claim interpretation is a matter of law to be determined independently by the courts at each level of the litigation process (Cybor v FAS Technologies, 138 F 3d 1448 (Fed Cir 1998 en banc); Markman v Westview Instruments, 52 F 3d 967 (Fed Cir 1995 en banc); affirmed 517 US 370 (1996).

It is now seven years since the Council of the European Communities adopted Regulation (EEC) No 1768/92 concerning the creation of a supplementary protection certificate for medicinal products, which entered into force on January 2 1993. This Regulation was intended to compensate the patent proprietor for the fact that, because of the long time taken by state marketing authorization procedures for medicinal products, the period of effective protection under the remaining term of the patent after such authorization has been obtained has been reduced considerably. The supplementary protection certificate (SPC) is a property right in its own right, which is granted separately for each member state of the EEC. It does not lead to a general extension of the term of a patent, and the question of the subject matter and extent of protection conferred by SPCs is consequently of decisive importance. Among specialists, this issue is the subject of highly charged debate, and the practice with regard to granting in the various member states also shows that, in some cases, very different standards are applied, with the consequence that, in the United Kingdom for example, certificates can be granted for active agents in a medicinal product in the form of their bases or salts thereof, whereas in Germany the Federal Patent Court (BPatG) has hitherto taken the line that the subject matter of an SPC can only be for the active agent shown in the marketing authorization. In the opinion of the BPatG, only the courts hearing infringement cases are entitled to determine the extent of protection conferred by an SPC, not the German Patent and Trade Mark Office.

In Mexico when someone seeks protection for a title of a periodical publication, a Mexican intellectual property counsel should recommend obtaining copyright as well as trade mark protection as trade mark protection only will not suffice. The Mexican Copyright Law recognizes sui generis protection for titles of publications including magazines, heads of newspapers, newspapers, pamphlets, supplements and guides. The Law also recognizes other types of titles of publications, however for the purposes of this brief they need not be included.

When applicants appeal Korean Industrial Property Tribunal (KIPT) decisions on unpatentability matters to the Korean Patent Court (KPC), they are usually frustrated at the decisions made by the court. Considering that most of judges at the KPC have limited technical background, it is extremely difficult for an appellant to persuade judges to overturn a KIPT decision sustaining the examiner´ s rejection on a patent application by discussing complex technical principles and theories as to why such an invention should be patentable. In other words, judges at the KPC customarily defer the technical aspects of an invention, ie whether an invention is patentable, to the KIPT because the KIPT is comprised of technical experts whose decisions are usually supported with precise and accurate technical reasons.

It is well known that European legislation, in accordance with the principle of the single market, provides for the free circulation of products within the European Union. Any attempt to use the exclusive rights conferred by a trade mark in order to prevent or limit the circulation of products within the territory of the Union is coherently considered as illicit by case law. This is in accordance with the so-called principle of trade mark exhaustion.

ITALY: 14 mafia members were arrested in Naples on April 8 for their part in an international piracy ring. The arrested were members of the Quadrifoglio organization, and are accused of printing counterfeit money to pay for pirate CDs imported from Singapore, Greece and Russia. The group used the illegal proceeds of piracy to finance record companies producing local pop music. They have been charged with conspiracy, money laundering and promoting the mafia.

Guidelines clarify trade mark law

The following comments relate to the laws and rules in Mexico regarding copyright protection terms, in accordance with different laws in force in Mexico since 1947. The purpose of this note is to explain how they could have impacted on foreign works of authorship. The author chose the case of US works because of the question NAFTA has posed, and because extending it to other countries laws would have made this note very long.