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Following the opening of Dumb Starbucks in February, what is the best way for brand owners to react to similarly comedic uses of their marks?

In January, in Weider Publications LLC v D&D Beauty Care Company LLC, the US Patent and Trademark Office's Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) issued a precedential decision which granted a broad range of protection for a mark determined to be famous. D&D Beauty had filed an application seeking to register the mark Shapes for use in connection with a range of beauty-related services. Weider Publications opposed registration of the mark claiming, among other things, a likelihood of confusion with its federal trade mark registrations for the mark Shape covering print and digital magazines in the field of health and fitness.

Whether the US Supreme Court's June 13 2013 ruling in Association for Molecular Pathology v Myriad Genetics, Inc, 133 S Ct 2107 (2013) – that "[a] naturally occurring DNA segment is a product of nature and not patent eligible merely because it has been isolated" – is narrowly applicable only to nucleic acids or will be broadly interpreted to apply to all naturally occurring biomolecules remains unclear.

Taiwan's Patent Act was amended in January 2014 to add new border protection provisions. According to the new provisions, a patent right holder may request detention of goods suspected of infringing his patent rights by depositing a bond.

According to the applicable provisions of Swiss law, the value of litigation in a specific action before the Patent Court determines how high both the court fees and the party costs awarded to the prevailing party will be set.

Recently, a case where a Korean agency that represents a renowned foreign photographer brought a claim for compensation for copyright infringement against K Company, which is one of the major conglomerates in Korea, has been receiving a lot of attention. The agency claimed that the photograph of an island (Sol Island in Korean), which appeared in a TV commercial in the second half of 2011, was an imitation of the photographer's work.

Unlike patent trolls in the original understanding of the term, the concept of Russian trolls is tinged by national particulars. The Russian law includes patents for a utility model. This is a simplified version of inventions which is sometimes called a petty patent. A patent for a utility model is granted without substantive examination which means that a patent may be granted for a known device with slight modifications.

If you are a holder of a Community trade mark or an international trade mark registration designating for protection the European Union or the Romanian territory, you may be the addressee of notices that are being sent by the Romanian State Office for Inventions and Trade Marks (OSIM).

In 2008, Total, the French oil and gas company, filed several motions for extension of time to file the verified notice of opposition against an application for registration of the mark Pro Tec covering lubricants by the Philippine company, Bryan Distributors & Services. Despite these extensions, Total failed to submit its opposition on deadline. Hence, Bryan's application was issued a certificate of registration for the trade mark Pro Tec. At that time, Total had a registered mark ProTec covering "marketing of petroleum products" in class 35.

New Zealand's consumer law reform amendments received royal assent on December 17 2013 and are now in force. Amendments including the new product safety provisions have immediate effect. Other changes affecting auctions, unsubstantiated claims, disclosure requirements and increased penalties will come into force in June 2014. And finally, the new unfair contract terms regime will apply from March 2015.