Search results for

The comment period for the latest draft of Icann's draft Applicant Guidebook for new generic top-level domains ended in May, one month after the draft was released. The 58 organisations to have sent in comments included INTA, MARQUES, WIPO, News Corporation, IBM, Time Warner and Microsoft.

The Belgian Court of Appeal has told Google that it infringes publishers' copyright by reproducing their headlines. The ruling confirms a 2007 first instance decision that supported the claims of Copiepresse, which represents French-language newspapers in Belgium. It claimed the way Google News reproduces headlines and article extracts in order to create a search engine for news infringed its copyright. Google claimed the system produced large benefits for the publishers and could be opted out of. The decision underlines the uncertainty around the interpretation of copyright around Europe. In January last year a Paris court ruled that Google did not break its copyright laws by reproducing thumbnail images of visual works. Other countries have followed similar interpretations of copyright. Google is likely to appeal to the Cour de Cassation in Belgium, the country's highest court and may then seek to refer the case to the Court of Justice of the EU.

The USPTO's Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) has published the long-awaited third edition of its Trademark Board Manual of Procedure (TBMP), to the delight of US trade mark owners and practitioners.

Icann visited Interpol's general secretariat headquarters in Lyon, France this week for the first time.

TiVo and EchoStar settled their years-long patent dispute last month, just weeks after the Federal Circuit issued an en banc decision in the case. The two parties agreed to a $500 million settlement and licences that will enable the companies to work together.

The review of UK IP laws by Professor Ian Hargreaves (right) makes some useful recommendations on updating copyright rules, but its one big idea seems not to consider overlap with existing proposals.

Reacting to the Federal Circuit defeat, Becton Dickinson’s counsel reemphasised the company’s concern with seeing the proper inequitable conduct standard in place and did not rule out an appeal to the Supreme Court

This month the Madras High Court in India will hear nine petitions by German company Enercon against decisions revoking 12 of its patents. The politically tinged dispute has exercised the top lawyers in India for and against the controversial revocations, as well as undermining two institutions that are already damaged: India's Intellectual Property Appellate Board (IPAB) and the Indian IP system itself.

Last month Managing IP was asked down to OHIM's offices in Alicante to talk to President António Campinos, in his first interview in the role. Relaxed and jovial, Campinos was keen to talk about both OHIM's new five-year plan and the role of an IP office in the EU generally. In common with many of OHIM's staff, he was dressed in jeans and an open-necked shirt ahead of a long weekend for the Office to mark the Schuman Declaration, which led to the creation of the EU.

Eileen McDermott, Karen Bolipata and Simon Crompton report from INTA’s Annual Meeting in San Francisco