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On May 14 2013 the General Court dismissed the appeal against the decision of the Board of Appeal of OHIM rejecting a trade mark application for the word fluege.de, under Article 7(1)(b) and (c) CTMR. The application was for services for "advertising, business management, business administration, office functions, transport, packaging and storage of goods, travel arrangement, services for providing foods and drink, accommodation services" in classes 35, 39 and 43.

Globalisation of corporate activities has enabled companies of different nationalities to conclude multinational patent transfer agreements. In this case, a Japanese company and a Korean company agreed to the jurisdiction of the Seoul Central District Court in a multinational patent transfer agreement. The Korean court affirmed the jurisdiction, however the Japanese court denied the jurisdiction regarding the transfer of the Japanese patents at the execution stage. If the jurisdiction agreed by the parties becomes void at a later execution stage in Japan, how should foreign companies decide jurisdiction clauses in multinational patent transfer agreement against Japanese companies?

Copyright explained, by sock puppets. Plus a little cocktail mixing

Netherlands comes ahead of a case that is awaiting a decision of the Enlarged Board of Appeal of the EPO (G 2/12): are plants that are obtained as a result of an "essentially biological process" patentable subject matter?

The third annual Europe Women in Business Law Awards took place last month, along with the second event in America. Among the winners were some of the stars of IP on both sides of the Atlantic

The revised European Patent Convention (EPC2000) introduced a review procedure for Boards of Appeal decisions by the Enlarged Board of Appeal (Article 112a EPC). The grounds on which a review may take place are rather limited. Among other things, parties adversely affected by a decision in appeal can file a petition for review on the grounds that a violation of the right to be heard occurred during proceedings before the Board of Appeal.

The question of whether a trade mark licensee should be recorded as a registered user (RU) has often been posed to trade mark practitioners where there are cost versus benefit considerations. The costs are filing fees, which are compounded by the need to make fresh applications whenever the trade marks concerned are renewed. In the Malaysian context, it has always been thought that two main benefits arise from such recordals. The first would be that the use by the RU would be deemed as use by the registered owner. The second is the right of the RU to sue for trade mark infringement, if certain conditions are met.

The US Patent and Trademark Office's Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) provides, among other things, a forum for trade mark owners to oppose the issuance of a certificate of registration for a mark filed by a third party which it believes is confusingly similar to its registered mark. Although the TTAB can issue a decision as to whether two marks are confusingly similar such that one of them should not be entitled to registration, the issue of whether one mark infringes another is beyond the scope of a TTAB proceeding and is instead left to the courts.

In 2012, the Mexican Institute of Industrial Property (IMPI) initiated the first border measures remedy against the importation of an active ingredient, due to the alleged administrative infringement of a patent. Although that was not the first border measures action imposed by IMPI based on patents, it was the first occasion that IMPI granted border measures based on a medical patent.

The Swiss Federal Administrative Court in a recently published decision refused to grant a request for a stay of opposition appeal proceedings, even though the validity of the opposition plaintiff's trade mark had been challenged in a civil court nullity action brought by the opposition defendant.