Search results for

New Decree 119/2010/ND-CP (Decree 119) on amendment of some articles of Decree 105/2006/ND-CP (Decree 105) on protection of IP rights in Vietnam was promulgated by the Vietnam Government on December 30 2010, and becomes effective as of February 20 2011. Decree 105 is one of the most important legal instruments on protection and enforcement of IP rights in Vietnam.

In the US, trade mark owners typically have two options to prevent the misuse of their marks as part of domain names, namely filing a complaint pursuant to the Uniform Domain Name Resolution Policy (UDRP) and seeking relief pursuant to the Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA).

In many countries IP, law affords separate protection to functional and non-functional aspects of a newly developed product. While novelty in function (a new invention) is covered by patent law, newness in aesthetics and other superficial features are protected by design law. However, in Thailand, IP protection for functional and design aspects is not mutually exclusive. Both inventions and designs are protected under the same patent law (Patent Act BE 2522(1979)). Consequently, many companies have ended up applying for design protection even when product changes are purely functional in nature and hence more applicable to invention patents than design patents. Sometimes these cases are driven primarily by concerns relating to cost, time (to bypass the substantive examination of an invention patent) or just plain strategy to monopolise a particular design.

The TIPO recently revised the procedural examining guidelines regarding the principles governing patent applications, with the revision taking effect on January 1 2011 and applying to all pending applications that are undergoing formal examination. Under to the revision, the "true" applicant of a patent application must be established in order to obtain an effective filing date.

On December 15 2010 the Swiss discounter Denner commenced the sale of capsules containing ground coffee with a similar appearance to Société des Produits Nestlé's Nespresso-branded capsules. Denner advertised its capsules as being compatible with Nespresso coffee machines, and used the advertising slogans "Denner – was suscht?" ("– quoi d'autre?"; "– cosa sennò?"), these expressions being Swiss-German, French and Italian translations of the English phrase "what else?"

The Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS) has issued a clarification on the issue of second medical use claim practice in Singapore. On September 22 2010, IPOS released an Examination Guide to Singapore law and practice for contract examiners of pending Singapore applications, being one of the Austrian, Danish or Hungarian Patent Offices. The Examination Guide provides, amongst other things, a section on the allowability of purpose-limited product claims when used for claiming subject matter relating to a second or further medical use of a known substance or composition.

Bucharest Court has recently rejected, in the first procedural phase, the action filed by the producer of Rafaello white-chocolate pralines covered in coconut against the distributor of Lumar wafers in Romania, for lacking grounds. Lumar wafers have a spherical shape, are filed with cream and coated in coconut.

The Director General of the Intellectual Property Office (IPOPHL), Ricardo Blancaflor, drawing on his experiences as former undersecretary of the Department of National Defense, and the Department of Justice where he handled activities involving anti-terrorism, anti-human trafficking, and the task force against political violence, has come out with some novel and less costly ways of assisting trade mark owners to enforce their IP rights in addition to raids, filing actions and border control measures. One of these is obtaining the cooperation of malls or shopping centres where the selling of counterfeits proliferates.

Norway (in addition to Finland) only accepted product patents on active ingredients in medicaments from January 1 1992. Prior to this date only "analogous method of preparation" type of claims where accepted. This means that we still have active patents in Norway comprising such claims until the end of 2011 and Supplementary Protection Certificates (SPCs) until the end of 2016 (July 2017 if pediatric extensions are included).

In case T1544/07 one of the opponents filed an appeal against the decision of the EPO Opposition Division to maintain the opposed patent in amended form. This would normally be a situation where the prohibition of reformatio in peius applies. But in this case, the Board of Appeal decided otherwise.