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Over the past year lawyers at London firm Bristows have staged a comprehensive mock Unified Patent Court case. Alan Johnson explains the lessons learned while James Nurton interviews some of the participants

Fran Jagla of Lane Powell, Jeff Epstein of Cowan Liebowitz & Latman and Mark Bullard of Lecorpio took part in our webinar “Mad about Madrid” and discussed the pros and cons of the Madrid System, specific issues that arise in Mexico, Colombia and Cuba, and notable issues for the pharmaceutical, fashion and move industries. They also took several questions from the audience

Our highest court has confirmed that Australia has moved closer to the European standard on obviousness. Traditionally, Australian Law has presented defendants with a difficult hurdle on obviousness when trying to invalidate patents. Under our historical test, it was necessary to show a document was part of the skilled workers "common general knowledge" before it could be utilised in an obviousness attack.

In a recent decision of the Commercial Court of Brussels, the court ordered Lidl Belgium to cease all use of the sign SOL!D in Belgium because it infringes the !SOLID trade marks registered in the name of CNS Group (Commercial Court of Brussels July 28 2015 – CNS Group SA v Lidl Belgium GmbH & Co KG).

The pricing of medicinal products has always been a hot issue in Greece, even more in recent years, when the government is under pressure to drastically reduce the spending on health care.

In the court decision X ZR 110/13, the Federal Supreme Court discussed the technical character of the graphical presentation of information. The patent in suit related to a device with a touch-sensitive display that could be unlocked via gestures performed on the touch-sensitive display. As a result of user input, sensory feedback is provided by the device. In its decision, the Federal Supreme Court confirmed the revocation of the patent at first instance by the Federal Patent Court in respect of obviousness.

In a recent decision, the Supreme Court in Indian Performing Rights Society Limited (IPRS) v Sanjay Dalia & Ors resolved the issue arising out of the interpretation of Section 62 of the Copyright Act, 1957 (CA) and Section 134 of the Trade Marks Act, 1999 (TMA) in a suit for infringement and its interplay with the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908.

On July 6 2015, the African Regional Intellectual Property Organisation (ARIPO) adopted a new Protocol for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (the Arusha Protocol) at a diplomatic conference that was held in Arusha, the United Republic of Tanzania.

So-called well-known trade marks enjoy a privileged level of protection, which is basically evidenced by two aspects. First, the legal system provides protection even in cases where a trade mark in such a condition – being well known – has not been registered. Second, the specialty principle whereby a trade mark is only legally protected in relation to those products or services for which its registration was requested and granted is not applicable to these types of trade marks.

Depending on your patent strategy, you might have decided to protect your invention by first filing a priority founding national patent application. The aim of this strategy might be to get a quick grant in the desired jurisdiction. The national application can then be followed by a European patent application designating the state in which the national application was filed and claiming the priority or having the same effective date as the national patent application. If both the European and the national patents are granted, you might wonder whether your invention can be simultaneously protected by both the national and the European patent in the state in which the national application was filed.