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The Romanian State Office for Inventions and Trademarks (SOIT) has rejected a national combined trade mark application Slims EA, filed for registration for products in class 34 "unprocessed, semi-processed or processed tobacco; tobacco products; cigarettes; cigars and cigarillos; cigarette filters/cigarettes; articles for smokers; matches/lighters and ashtrays for smokers that are not made of precious metals" due to the conflict with the previous national combined trademark Eve, registered for products in class 34 "tobacco, raw or manufactured including cigars, cigarettes, cigarillos, tobacco for roll your own cigarettes, pipe tobacco, chewing tobacco, snuff tobacco; tobacco substitutes (not for medical purposes); smokers' articles, including cigarette paper and tubes, cigarette filters, tobacco tins, cigarette cases and ashtrays not made of precious metals, their alloys or plated with such; pipes, pocket apparatus for rolling cigarettes, lighters; matches".

The Korean Patent Act (KPA) includes a basis for patent invalidation that allows an applicant to file an invalidation action. This is based on a so-called principle of distribution of power, in which patent grant and invalidation is the exclusive authority of the Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) as the administrative agency, while judgment for the legal disputes regarding patent rights is the exclusive authority of the courts.

Over the last couple of years, plant breeders have become increasingly aware of patent rights on plants. Because of differences between the patent system on the one hand and the breeder's rights system on the other, a conflict has arisen between the breeders community, that, as a rule, is not often concerned with patent filing and the usually larger companies that file for patent protection regularly.

In a recent copyright infringement case (April 2010) in Malaysia [Suit No D5 (IP)-22-1152-2005], the local high court carefully reviewed certain key facts and legal precedents to meticulously analyse and rule on some important aspects of copyright infringement.

Under the Japanese Patent Act, registration is required for an exclusive licensee to be able to assert its exclusivity directly against any third party , as opposed to requesting the licensor to do so. Specifically, a licensee who enters into an exclusive licence agreement with a patentee without registering such exclusive licence with the Japan Patent Office has no right to directly demand an infringer of the licensed patent to cease its infringement even within the field in which the licensee shall have the exclusivity under the licence agreement. Rather, a licensee needs to register certain information in the patent registry maintained in the Patent Office in order to obtain such right and become a true exclusive licensee. Under the current registration system, the exclusive licensee’s name and the scope of the licence shall be registered and such information shall be made available to the public; however, this registration system has been unpopular because licensees are generally reluctant to disclose information which may be considered business secrets.

The data appearing in the annual statistics published by the European Patent Office confirms Italy as one of the top 10 countries for the number of European patent applications filed per year.

Abhai Pandey and Swati Setia of LEXORBIS IP Practice provide an overview of recent IP developments

YJ Trivedi and Tejas Trivedi of YJ Trivedi & Co consider enforcement strategy

Dr Mohan Dewan and Ameet Deshpande of R K Dewan & Co consider jurisdiction in intellectual property law

A monthly column devoted to IP curiosities and controversies, named in honour of John of Utynam – who received the world’s first recorded patent in 1449 diary@managingip.com