Search results for

According to Article 7 of the Patent Law, the employer in principle owns the right to file a patent application for an invention made by an employee and to the resulting patent. As for what is considered an employee invention, Article 7 merely states that it is one that is completed by the employee in the performance of his work during the employment period.

The definiteness requirement of Section 112(b) of the Patent Act mandates that claims "particularly point[] out and distinctly claim[] the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention". The disagreement in Nautilus v Biosig centered on how much imprecision this definiteness requirement tolerates. In the Federal Circuit's view, a claim was indefinite only if it is "insolubly ambiguous" or not "amenable to construction". A unanimous Supreme Court criticised the standard as "more amorphous than the statutory definiteness requirement allows", citing lower courts' confusion, but also acknowledged that the Federal Circuit's "fuller explications of the term 'insolubly ambiguous' may come closer to tracking the statutory prescription" for definiteness.

Ski in ski out is a registered Community trade mark. Its owner and the plaintiff owns a hotel in an Austrian skiing area situated directly at the skiing slope so that one can directly ski to and from the hotel. The defendant owns a restaurant in the same skiing area. It advertises its business indirectly that its restaurant lies directly at the skiing slope "always in the middle with Ski in & Ski out", "Ski in & Ski out ... in the whole winter". The plaintiff wanted to forbid the use of Ski in & Ski out. The defendant pointed to fair use under Article 12 (b) CTMR to which the plaintiff replied that the defendant would have to file an invalidity action before OHIM if it wants to use an identical mark. Since it did not file such an action, it infringes the CTM.

In a recent judgment, the multi-bench Court of First Instance in Athens (specialised section in IP matters) clarified that certain defences that may be raised by defendants in trade mark infringement cases are impermissible.

While patent practitioners all over Europe anxiously follow the establishment of the UPC, the Enlarged Board of Appeal (EBA) of the EPO has rendered a decision (interim decision in case R 19/12 of April 25 2014), which highlights a constitutional hitch relating to the independence of the Boards of Appeal from other organisational bodies within the EPO.

According to Article 12(2) (a) of Directive 2008/12 a trade mark shall be liable to revocation if, in consequence of acts of inactivity of the owner, it has become the common name for a product in respect of which it is registered.

Nike International filed an appeal against the refusal of the Patent Office to register its mark (application number 2011725665) for class 25. According to the documents on file the claimed designation is figurative and represents a stylised head of a bull.

In April, the US Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals issued a decision in Sprecht v Google Inc which provided an interesting analysis of various acts that do not constitute use of a trade mark.

On 8 April 2014, the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS) announced an IP financing scheme set to catalyse innovation among local companies. The IP financing scheme is part of the government's initiatives to develop Singapore as a hub for IP transactions and management, taking advantage of IPOS's newly established Centre of Excellence for IP valuation.

On April 22, the People's Court of the city of Da Nang issued a decision ordering the revocation of the lafarge.com.vn domain name registered by a Vietnamese individual, giving Lafarge SA of France a 10-day sunrise period to register the domain name itself. This brought to a conclusion a five-year battle over cybersquatting and set a precedent for domain name cases in Vietnam.