Search results for

The USPTO Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences should rely on evidence submitted by parties rather than its own expertise in judging who is the rightful owner of a patent

The manager of a shopping complex in Sarawak has been charged with allowing a tenant to sell pirated CDs in what is believed to be the first criminal landlord liability case in Malaysia

In a case between Taiwan's Fair Trade Commission (FTC) and Philips, the Supreme Administrative Court of Taiwan made a final ruling on April 4 2007. The Court held that a patent pool that included patents owned by Philips, Sony and Taiyo Yuden which were licensed in a package to Taiwan's CD-R manufacturers was not a concerted action. It upheld the ruling of the Taipei High Administrative Court to revoke the decision of the FTC and said that the term "concerted action" used in Article 14 of the Fair Trade Act refers to the action of enterprises with a competitive relationship. Such competitive relationship will be deemed to exist where the goods or services provided by the enterprises are substitutable by each other's goods or services. Since the CD-R manufacturers must use the orange book-compliant techniques covered by the patents owned by Philips, Sony and Taiyo Yuden in combination in order to produce CD-Rs, and since CD-Rs cannot be produced using any one of the patents alone, the Court held that the patents owned by Philips, Sony and Taiyo Yuden are complementary to each other rather than substitutable for each other. As such, there is no competitive relationship among them.

Since OHIM opened, it has received more than half a million applications for Community trade marks. Thousands have been rejected, and thousands more opposed prompting frustrated would-be trade mark owners to go to the European courts. How can they maximize their chances of winning? Emma Barraclough finds out

With regard to pending marketing authorization applications, the register of the National Agency for Medicines (NAM) has so far disclosed only the filing date, the number of the applicants and applications and the active ingredient to a third party. In accordance with a recent decision from the Supreme Administrative Court, a third party is now also entitled to obtain, upon request, information on the identity of the applicant and the type of the application before the marketing authorization is granted.

Even in the first Austrian Patent Law of 1897, there was a special provision that the Court had to terminate the effect of an interlocutory injunction if the defendant offered an adequate security. The Court had only to judge whether the amount offered was adequate. Over the years, people concerned complained that it was impossible to enforce a preliminary injunction since defendants nearly always paid the security as it was generally set at an affordable price. This unsatisfactory situation remained until a major patent law reform in 1988 when this stringent provision was changed into a possibility. The Court could now on its own finding terminate a preliminary injunction for an adequate security by considering the specific circumstances. Since then, in rare cases the effect of preliminary injunctions was terminated for a specific act, but not generally (for example to allow the construction of certain buildings to be finished).

An increasing number of examiners say the patent system faces collapse. Robert Budens, president of the Patent Office Professional Association, explains

Attorneys from Microsoft, AOL, Yahoo and Google tried to "diffuse some of the emotional issues" to do with internet advertising last month

Banu Barbur and Serra Coral of Deris Patents & Trademarks Agency A.S. and Deris Law Firm say that much more clarity is needed in Turkey's assessment of well-known trade marks

Litigation and dispute resolution can be a costly and time-consuming business. Clients looking for reassurance from their legal advisers would often like those advisors to "put their money where their mouth is" and shoulder at least some of the financial risks of the legal action by working under a so-called no win – no fee payment arrangement. However, such arrangements are not as simple as their name suggests and those considering such arrangements would be wise to remember that "if it looks too good to be true, it probably is". For example, a losing party will generally be required by the court to meet the costs of the other side. Such costs would not be affected by a no win – no fee arrangement. Accordingly, no win would nevertheless still result in a significant financial outlay for the losing party, even if they did not have to pay their advisor' fees.