Search results for

James Nurton, Washington DC

Correspondents from seven jurisdictions reveal how you should protect and enforce your copyright in some of the world’s most important markets

In September, the Indonesian legislature passed the controversial Film Law. The law has been criticised for its contentious local film content quotas and for creating unnecessary administration. The law also creates a number of IP issues that are causing concern in the local film industry.

A Supplementary Protection Certificate (SPC) can be granted in Norway for pharmaceuticals for humans and animals and plant protection products. This may extend the total period for actual patent protection up to 25 years, that is an additional five years of patent protection beyond the normal 20 years.

On May 24 1999 a Greek entity filed an application for a trade mark consisting of an image of Napoleon in uniform, having one hand inside his jacket, his other hand holding a roll of toilet paper, with the word Napoleon below. The trade mark was filed to cover toilet paper and other paper articles for household purposes.

The European Patent Office has released its 2008 statistics, which show that the number of grants is increasing again after a drop in 2007. Nearly 60,000 European patents were granted in 2008, which is an increase of 9.4% compared to 2007, but still about 3,000 grants less than in 2006. The number of refusals has increased by 42% over 2007.

In the recent case of Ratiopharm Inc v Pfizer Limited (2009) FC711 Mr Justice Hughes has again emphasised the important of exercising the utmost good faith in the drafting and prosecution of patent applications. In this chemical case, he was highly critical of the draftsperson for including phrases such as "unexpectedly", "unique", and "outstandingly suitable" as being "self-serving" and inconsistent with the facts apparent from the record of the invention. Hughes found that the words could not have come from the inventors, but "could only have come from the Pfizer patent department".

On October 1 2009, the Law on Simplification and Modernisation of the German Patent Law entered into force.

Many states will grant a corporate charter to an entity provided that the name of the company is not identical to another company formed under the laws of such state. Therefore, parties interested in using a particular name in the US often operate under the misconception that simply obtaining such name as a corporate name in a particular state is sufficient to grant it rights to use such name and to defend it from claims of infringement. However, even though a state may accept a corporate name for incorporation, such acceptance does not constitute an adjudication of the legality of such use and does not undermine or otherwise diminish the trade mark rights that another party may already have in the same or similar name.

Personal data and data privacy are governed in Argentina by Law N° 25,326 (Personal Data Protection Law). The main objective of the Argentine personal data protection legal regime is the full protection of personal data recorded in data files, registries, databases, or other technical means of data treatment, either public or private, for the purpose of providing reports in order to guarantee the honour and individual privacy, as well as the access to information that may be recorded about such persons, in accordance with the provisions of Section 43, third paragraph of the Argentine Constitution.