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Residual goodwill is the association that a consumer has between a trade mark that may no longer be in active use and its original source. The legal implications of a trade mark's residual goodwill often become significant when third parties attempt to secure rights to it to profit from consumers' nostalgia for older brands. Typically, a new party hoping to revitalise an otherwise dormant trade mark will take steps to cancel the owner's registration based on allegations of abandonment.

The Department of Intellectual Property of Thailand opened its doors to PCT applications on December 24 2009. Since then, any PCT application filed on or after 24 December 2009 has automatically included the designation of Thailand.

We reported previously in this column how Société des Produits Nestlé sued for a preliminary injunction prohibiting the retail discounter Denner from selling and advertising coffee capsules compatible with Nestlé's Nespresso coffee machines that were similar in appearance to the Nespresso coffee capsules. Nestlé's claims were based on a three-dimensional trade mark registration for the capsule shape, on a trade mark registration for the mark What Else? and on unfair competition law. The first instance judge granted the injunction in ex parte proceedings, but subsequently essentially revoked it in inter partes proceedings. The judge considered Denner's argumentation persuasive that the form registered in Nestlé's 3D trade mark cannot be granted trade mark protection because it is technically necessary, in particular for capsules intended to be compatible with Nespresso coffee machines. Nestlé on the other hand argued that the conical shape of its coffee capsule registration is not technically necessary for compatibility with Nespresso coffee machines or other machines, and that a number of alternative, different Nespresso-compatible capsule shapes exist, so that its trade mark registration was valid.

The Singapore patent system provides several options for completing the search and examination procedure:

The world now frowns at smokers. Yet Russia remains one of the countries with the highest smoking rate. Many tobacco companies have a presence in Russia and strive to strengthen their hold on Russian smokers. Philip Morris is one such company. It filed to register the figurative trade mark.

The Supreme Administrative Court, on May 31 2011, dismissed an earlier judgment of the District Administrative Court in Warsaw in a case resulting from a complaint filed by Tiffany Broadway of Texpol Corporation over a decision of the Polish Patent Office cancelling the Tiffany trade mark, and returned the case to the District Administrative Court for re-examination.

The Supreme Court in its decision of June 1 2011 in the case of Fredco Manufacturing Corp v Harvard University denied the petition of Fredco and declared the mark Harvard well-known internationally and in the Philippines.

The Norwegian Marketing Control Act offers additional protection to an IP owner, based on the legal ground that a trade mark or product imitation may constitute an infringement of commercial rights. The protection is offered even when no IP rights are registered in Norway.

In New Zealand, one of our largest breweries, DB Breweries Limited, owns the trade mark for Radler for beer.

It is established practice in the Netherlands that the extent of damage that occurs as a consequence of a tort need not be proven to the hilt. It is sufficient to show convincingly that damage might have occurred. It is then up to a court to judge the extent of damage. For this, the court may determine the difference between the actual situation (the consequence of the tort) and a hypothetical situation occurring when the tort had not taken place. The court is not bound to the normal rules for providing facts and evidence.