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Emma Barraclough, London

Shahnaz Mahmud, New York

Emma Barraclough, London

A company that has a trade mark filing in place in a foreign jurisdiction has multiple options when considering an expansion of its trade mark rights into the United States. Specifically, US trade mark law provides several mechanisms pursuant to which a foreign trade mark owner can use the priority established by a foreign trade mark filing when making a filing in the United States.

In a recent judgment concerning interim measures (case Ö 566-06 – Roche Aktiebolag v Orifarm AB – June 9 2006), the Swedish Supreme Court ruled it objectively necessary for a parallel trader to relabel an imported pharmaceutical product with another company's registered trade mark in order to gain effective access to the Swedish market. This exception to the exclusive rights provided by a trade mark was found justified with respect to patient safety and resistance from consumers to a product marketed under a different name to that marketed by the trade mark proprietor.

Korea's Customs Service and KIPO, along with numerous Korean e-commerce sites and the European Chamber of Commerce, have been working with a number of famous brand owners to cut down on the proliferation of manufacturing, marketing and exporting of counterfeit goods. So far, their efforts have been successful. Estimates indicate over $90 million-worth of counterfeit goods were seized between February and April, a tremendous increase from the $30 million-worth seized in the whole of 2005.

As the use of slogans to promote and build awareness of goods and services becomes a universal phenomenon, companies who use slogans and have them splashed across their products or at their place of business have become more aware of the need to protect the slogans as trade marks, in addition to protecting their traditional marks. This is because consumers are now more aware of the various slogans being used and it can be argued that slogans can be considered to be part of the brand itself.

The European Patent Convention (EPC), which provides for a centralized procedure for granting of patents in Europe and the establishment of the European Patent Office (EPO), was signed on October 5 1973. The EPC was extensively revised at a Diplomatic Conference held in Munich in November 2000 and the revised text termed EPC 2000. It was agreed that the EPC 2000 would come into force two years after ratification by 15 contracting states. A number of new states have joined the EPC since November 2000 and they have all agreed to ratify EPC 2000. Thus, when on December 13 2005 Greece ratified EPC 2000, Greece became the 15th state to deposit its instrument of ratification. The EPC 2000 will therefore come into force on December 13 2007, at the latest. Any contracting state of the EPC that has not ratified EPC 2000 by this date will cease to be a contracting state of the EPC.

A prominent businessman is driving on Sheik Zayed Road one day and sees his image on a billboard advertising a property development in Dubai. An employee of a desert tour company is flipping through a magazine and sees his image used in a leaflet advertising the company's activities. A student is at an art gallery and comes across a photograph in which she is prominently featured. In all of these cases, the permission of the people featured in the photographs and advertisements was not obtained.

For PCT applications that have an international filing date on or after July 1 2004 and which enter the national phase in Singapore under Chapter I, one of the search and examination procedures available is to file a statement saying that the applicant wishes to rely on the international preliminary report on patentability (IPRP) of the PCT application and proceed to grant. In other words, Chapter I cases can rely on the IPRP for grant, thereby avoiding the need to request local examination in Singapore.