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Along with the development of science and technology that affects economic competition in the global market, and to implement the provisions of International Treaties, in 2010 the Directorate General of Intellectual Property Rights of the Department of Justice and Human Rights prepared a draft amendment to law number 14 of 2001 concerning patents. Its main purpose is to provide an ordinance to protect the interests of the inventor of patents and improvements in the Patent Law Regulations.

Thomas Pattloch has left his post as IP officer at the EU delegation to China and Mongolia in Beijing to join the Munich office of UK full-service law firm TaylorWessing.

The Delhi High Court, in Tata Sons v Greenpeace, recently denied interim injunction to Tata Sons, in an action that sought a permanent injunction and damages amounting to Rs100 million ($2.17 million) against Greenpeace. Tata has initiated an action for infringement of trade mark and defamation and disparagement against Greenpeace. The cause of action for the case arose from a game, modeled around the popular Pac-man game, named Turtle v TATA, that depicts turtles being chased by the Tata logo. The game was intended to raise awareness on the alleged adverse impact of the Dhamra Port Project, a joint venture project between Tata Sons and Larsen and Toubro, on Olive Ridley turtles.

Patent applications may be filed at the German Patent and Trademark Office (GPTO) in a language other than German, provided that a full translation of the foreign language application is filed within three months from the filing date. According to Section 35 of the German Patent Act, the application is deemed not to have been filed if a complete translation is not filed in time.

Wragge & Co has hired IP litigator Tom Carver as the new director of the firm’s office in Guangzhou.

The General Court of the EU recently found that the Commission infringed the copyright and know-how of Systran machine-translation software. To sanction this behaviour, on December 16, 2010 it ordered the Commission to pay Systran liquidated damages of €12.001 million.

The Raising the Bar initiative at the EPO has – via a number of changes in the Implementing Regulations and EPO Guidelines – attempted to streamline examination. Among other things, the introduction of new EPC Rules 62a, 63 and 70a attempt to introduce elements of examination at the search phase, so that when a patent application reaches the Examining Division, it should be clear what the invention is, what is claimed and what has been searched.

Following the dispute between the Belgian company Engels and the Korean car manufacturer Daewoo for the exclusive right to use a logo composed of the letters DE, light was shed by the Benelux Court of Justice on the question of whether the owner of a lapsed trade mark can preclude a third party from using a confusing sign by invoking provisions on unfair competition (Daewoo Electronics Europe v D Engels).

Everybody who has ever been to Austria for skiing is likely to have come across the famous mixed drink Flügerl. A Flügerl is a shot-like drink consisting of a Red Bull and red or white vodka, and is very commonly offered at après-ski huts in Austrian ski resorts. The trade mark Flügerl has been registered for non-alcoholic drinks (class 32) as well as for alcoholic drinks (class 33).

Since the recent implementation of new software, the Trade Marks Registry in Uganda has insisted that specifications of goods and services be worded exactly in accordance with the class headings as set out in the 9th edition of the International (Nice) Classification. As a result, acceptance notices have been issued requiring that specifications that deviate from the wording used in the Nice Classification be changed - before the application can proceed to advertisement.