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Recent amendments will encourage brand owners to register trade marks in Lithuania more responsibly, put them to genuine use and defend them more actively, explain Ruta Pumputiene and Jurgita Randakeviciute

Trade secrets are an increasingly important part of a company’s IP portfolio. But IP owners need to ensure their secrets are afforded maximum protection. Michael Warnecke explains how they should do it

In September, Finland will become the first Nordic country to have a specialised IP court. Petri Rinkinen and Kim Parviainen explain how it will work

The value of intellectual property is well known, but Guy Proulx argues that rather than merely acquiring assets, companies need to develop an IP strategy that fits in with their long-term business goals

In April this year, the Beijing High Court published Top 10 Intellectual Property Cases of 2012, one of which involved the responsibility of a group-purchase website for trade mark infringement. In this case, our firm represents the plaintiff, who is the owner of the mark Le Coq Sportif and device registered for shoes etc in China. The Supreme Court later included the case in the Top 50 Intellectual Property Cases of 2012 .

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 Chinese Supreme Court recently published the list of top 10 IP litigation cases of 2012. One selected case is the final judgment decided by the Zhejiang High Court regarding the patent infringement litigation between Holley Communicates and Shenzhen Samsung Kejian Mobile Communication.

In several cases, a trade mark cannot be registered, even if it has sufficient distinctiveness, because there is an identical or similar trade mark previously registered or applied for to distinguish the same goods or services. Even though the Trade Mark Law does not specifically use the terms "confusion or likelihood of confusion", its main purpose is to avoid this situation. Section 3 of the Law says that a trade mark identical or similar to one previously registered or applied for to distinguish the same goods or services cannot be registered.

Filing a Belgian patent application presents several major advantages to applicants. Indeed, filing a Belgian patent application only involves the payment of a very low filing fee (€50) and a search fee (€300), these two fees being sufficient to obtain, after only a formal examination, a granted Belgian patent within two or three years of the filing date. This means that an invention may be protected on the Belgian territory in a short time and at a low cost.

The owner of the mark Buckfast registered in 1981 for goods and services related to beekeeping sued for infringement a beekeeper who had published ads offering to sell hives with "Buckfast" bees. At trial and on appeal, the beekeeper lost.