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Dilution of a well-known trade mark includes weakening, diluting and derogating the distinctiveness of the mark. In practice, it appears that using the same or very a similar well-known mark of another party in respect of non-identical or dissimilar goods, which weaken and dilute its distinctiveness, affects the discernment of the well-known trade mark and its affinity to consumers.

On September 21 2013, the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IPOPHL) published its Rules and Regulations on its enforcement functions and visitorial powers granted by Republic Act 10372, which amends the IP Code. These rules, which enhance the enforcement of IP rights in the country, took effect on October 7 2013 and provide the following.

In a recent case an Australian franchisor of drive-through coffee outlets operating under the trade mark Muzz Buzz was able to stop a New Zealand operator trading under the name Jitta Buzz. Although the defendant was active in New Zealand well before the plaintiff, the court considered it had copied the business model and overall presentation from the plaintiff's Australian operation. The defendant's behaviour in this respect appeared to be sufficient to sway the court despite the strength of the plaintiff's causes of action being prima facie dubious.

In order to expedite the resolution of disputes over the registration and use of an internet domain name, Icann adopted the UDRP system. Under Paragraph 4 of the UDRP, a person who has legitimate interest in or right to a domain name may commence an administrative proceeding against the domain name holder for the cancellation or transfer of the domain name by submitting a complaint to one of the administrative-dispute-resolution service providers approved by Icann, which includes the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center.

A recent decision (T-437/11 of September 16) by the General Court allowed Golden Balls to use his registration "Golden Balls", despite a long legal battle with Intra-Press, the owners of the "Ballon d'Or" trade mark.

The Calcutta High Court settled a long-standing dispute between Hindustan Unilever and Reckitt Benckiser on comparative advertisements for their products on September 23. The pertinent issue was whether the advertisements made by both parties fell foul of sections 29 and 30 of the Trademarks Act, 1999.

For an invention to be patentable, the invention must be novel and inventive. However, some countries provide grace periods so that disclosure of the invention within a specified period of time prior to the date of filing, subject to certain terms and conditions, is not regarded as destroying the novelty of the invention. In Malaysia, the grace period provisions can be found in section 14(3) of its Patents Act 1983.

Any human activity that causes damage creates the need to implement reparatory mechanisms. A party infringing a trade mark uses a good that does not belong to them and accomplishes this misappropriation to obtain a benefit.

Fashion companies often use their distinctive house marks in conjunction with multiple secondary marks to serve as a single source identifier for their product lines. The house mark groups the multiple different product offerings under the solitary heading of a well-known brand. The inclusion of the house mark could play a pivotal role in determining whether a likelihood of confusion exists between two otherwise similar marks.

In the June 2012 issue of Managing IP, we reported on a novel calculation of application fees at the German PTO. While there was some ambiguity in the wording of the new law on costs in patent affairs, the legislator has now confirmed in proposed amendments to the law that, upon nationalisation of a PCT application, based on the number of claims as originally filed, fees must be paid for each claim in excess of 10 claims (€20/€30 for electronic/paper filing). Thus, for applications with a high number of original claims, substantial additional fees must be paid with no option for reduction by reducing the number of claims upon entry into the German national phase.