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A district court ruling has upheld the business model of online music lockers, but left some questions unresolved. The Southern District of New York partially granted the parties' motions for summary judgment in Capitol Records v MP3tunes. The suit was filed in 2007 by EMI and 14 record companies and music publishers, alleging that online music locker MP3tunes infringed their copyrights. In the opinion, Judge William Pauley ruled that online music lockers are eligible under the safe harbours of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) if they adhere to copyright holders' takedown notices concerning specific infringement. While that ruling is good news for MP3tunes and services like it, Pauley also found MP3tunes liable for contributory infringement. MP3tunes operates a second website, www.sideload.com, a search engine that links to third party sites containing free song files. By removing only the Sideload.com links to EMI's works but not the actual content from users' lockers, MP3tunes was found to have contributorily infringed the copyrighted works. MP3tunes founder Michael Robertson was also found to have directly infringed works by downloading songs to his personal storage locker that were identified by EMI as unauthorised.

More than 10,000 brand owners are expected to block their trade mark from being used in a .xxx adult domain. Businesses from outside the adult entertainment industry can use the trade mark blocking system during the sunrise period for .xxx, which was opened on September 7 2011 by ICM Registry. The sunrise period closes on October 28. Trade mark holders make a one-off payment to registrars which blocks a domain for 10 years. The opt-out system, which was a condition of in March 2011, allows businesses to block a domain that matches their mark exactly. Registrars have seen a positive response from their clients. Frederick Felman, chief marketing officer at MarkMonitor, said the interest in the blocking system was the highest since the launch of the European .eu domain in December 2005. "I expect that this will probably result in approximately 50% of the volume we saw in .eu registrations," he said. Chief executive Lawley said he was happy that the .xxx domain had finally been initiated. "It's been a long road and we are very excited, and it's great to see it come to fruition now."

The trade mark has an essential function in the marketing process of pharmaceutical products since it not only distinguishes a product from another one, but in the particular case of the pharmaceutical industry, and even after the expiration of the patent term, it can be extremely useful for maintaining the consumer's adherence to a certain medicament.

The USPTO and the Austrian Patent Office are to extend their patent prosecution highway programme.

Traditionally, where no design or patent rights exist, Australia has allowed rival traders to copy the look and feel of a product without concern as to the originator's rights. However, recently in Peter Bodum A/S & Ors v DKSH Australia Pty Ltd (2011), the Full Federal Court enforced some residual reputational rights to the well-known Bodum Chambord coffee plunger.

An affirmative vote by Ashurst and Blake Dawson on September 23 has paved the way for a merger between the two firms.

In a recent decision the Austrian Supreme Court changed its case law with respect to merchandising articles. In the case the defendant sold souvenir plates showing one of the famous Lipizzaner white horses of the Spanish horse riding school in Vienna. Below the picture of the horse the text Spanische Reitschule (Spanish Riding School) appeared. However, Spanische Reitschule was registered as a trade mark for the operating company of the riding school. Accordingly, the trade mark owner filed an infringement action.

A relatively easy and relevant way to enforce evidence of infringement in France and in Belgium is to implement infringement seizures.

Google was recently condemned in a case in Belgium that could have implications in Europe for news indexes provided by search engines.

The PRC Trade Marks Law prohibits registration of a trade mark that incorporates geographical indication when the commodities concerned do not originate from that geographical region, such that the trade mark would mislead the public. Geographical indications refer to an indication of the geographical origin of the commodities, whose given quality, reputation and other characteristics are determined by the natural factors or human factors of that region.