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A trade mark licence agreement may include a specified amount of minimum royalties during each year that the agreement is in effect. This promise of a minimum payment to be remitted whether or not there are actual or adequate sales is often a material inducement to the licensor to enter into the agreement. It assures the licensor that it will get paid a specified amount regardless of the number of licensed products sold by the licensee. The concept of guaranteed minimum royalties serves, in essence, as a form of certainty of minimum returns to the licensor and compensation for the foregone opportunity to exploit the mark differently.

As the division of claims in a patent is not possible under the Patent Law, a patent may be cancelled through invalidation proceedings even if some of the claims are patentable. This has given rise to grave concerns. The views held by the courts in this regard may be apparent from a judgment on a patent invalidation case by the Supreme Court in December 2010, and a subsequent ruling on the same case by the IP Court in July 2011.

The Federal Administrative Court recently rejected, on appeal, an application to register the scent of caramelised almonds as a scent mark.

French emperor Napoleon could hardly have predicted that the battle he fought near the small Russian village of Borodino in 1812 would have repercussions through the centuries and in fields completely unrelated to warfare.

Not too long ago, the Bucharest Court of Appeals maintained two decisions of the Re-examination Commission from the Romanian State Office for Inventions and Trademarks (SOIT) by which the national (Romanian) trade mark applications Goldhopfer and Goldenhop were rejected for goods in class 32 (beers) due to a conflict with the earlier trade marks Golden Brau, registered in the name of the well-known beer manufacturer Heineken.

After two years of review, the Supreme Court of the Philippines issued the Rules of Procedure for Intellectual Property Rights Cases, which took effect on November 8 2011. These rules, governing civil and criminal actions, were proposed by the Intellectual Property Office (IPPHL) with the objective of reducing counterfeiting in the Philippines. The highlights of these new rules are as follows:

An agreement for a patent prosecution highway (PPH) between the Norwegian Industrial Property Office and United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) entered into force on November 1 2011.

On September 1 2011, the provisions of the Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Amendment Act came into force in New Zealand.

In a recent decision in August, T923/08, a Technical Board of Appeal (TBA) had to decide on a method for measuring parameters on a human or animal body, in particular measuring the length of a femur. For this method a device is essential, which is connected to the body, for example to a hip bone, in a surgical step. As this step is completed before the measuring of the parameters, it is not part of the measuring method and thus, is not a feature of the claim. The TBA, however, counters that, as confirmed by the applicant, the measuring method would not be possible without the bone-fixed device. Therefore, according to the TBA, the surgical step is an indispensable part of the claimed method and has to be incorporated into the claim; otherwise, the claim lacks clarity and is not allowable.

Under the Mexican Trademark Law there is no obligation to use a trade mark until it is time for renewal, 10 years after the filing date of the registration. When filing the application for renewal it is only necessary to declare under oath that the mark has been used during a term of the last three years.