Search results for

The European Patent Office has released its 2011 statistics, according to which the number of new patent applications filed has reached an all-time high of 244,437. Some 24% of the new applications filed in 2011 originate from the US (28% in 2007), and 32% come from Asia (25% in 2007). EPO member states account for 38% of all filings (40% in 2007). Some 33,181 applications were filed by German applicants, and 12,107 by applicants in France. Switzerland comes in third. The number of UK-based applications has dropped by 9.4% compared to the previous year to a total of 6,464.

A new Patents Order, 2011 has come into force in Brunei Darussalam, effective January 1 2012. This legislation repeals the previous patent legislation: The Inventions Act, Chapter 72.

What kind of work deserves copyright protection? According to the 1994 Belgian law on copyright and related rights, a work should be expressed in a certain form, be communicated to the public (the ideas are not protected) and be original. Since the Screenoprints judgment by the Benelux Court of Justice, the case law has often used a fourth criterion: "the stamp of the personality of the author".

In Austria, patents may be revoked by sending a request for revocation to the nullity department of the Austrian Patent Office. Decisions may be appealed to the Supreme Patent and Trademark Senate, a special court established at the Supreme Court that is exclusively responsible for registered IP rights, such as patents, trade marks and designs. The Austrian system is therefore similar to Germany's bifurcated system, which also provides separate proceedings for validity of patents.

Traditionally, it has been possible for local traders to skilfully adopt foreign trade marks that have received little local publicity. Often some minor modification is made to the foreign mark. Whilst often considered 'sharp' business practice, it had been sanctioned by our courts.

Since the adoption of TRIPs and the enactment of the Patent Law 24.481, and despite the great controversy that arose at that moment in Argentina, patents for pharmaceutical products have been introduced.

New Balance Athletic Shoe appealed against a decision by the South African Registrar of Trade Marks to expunge trade marks P-F Flyers and P-F on the grounds of non-use in terms of section 27(1)(b) of the South African Trade Marks Act 194 of 1993.

A Chinese official has told reporters in Beijing that Proview is the owner of the iPad trade mark

A legal adviser at Europe’s highest court says that creators of computer programs should be allowed to prevent people from selling so-called used licences that enable the programs to be downloaded from the internet again

A court in Germany has become the first to rule that YouTube must use filtering technology to check for copyright infringement, in this case for repeated uploads