Search results for

A rare glimpse into the workings of the USPTO reveals an organization rich in history and poised on the threshold of change. Sam Mamudi visits the Arlington agency and finds out what makes it tick

The Korean government has traditionally held the rights to inventions in national and public universities. But new technology transfer legislation will change that. Researchers will now have an incentive to commercialize their inventions, writes Man-Gi Paik

A company’s infrastructure is like a spider’s web in which information must be trapped and digested. This image conveys aptly one of the most challenging aspects of an IP manager’s job: capturing invention information, writes Janice Denoncourt

"A world patent is the eventual aim but this is difficult in the near future"

Stephen Whybrow, CMS Cameron McKenna, London

In an appeal from the US Patent and Trademark Office Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences (Scott v Koyama, 61 USPQ 2d 1856 (Fed Cir Feb 27 2002)), an interference between a party (Koyama) that filed a patent application in Japan on March 13 1990 and a party (Scott) whose UK patent application was filed on March 29 1990, the Federal Circuit was faced with a situation in which neither party could rely on its actual reduction to practice of the invention. This was because the work was performed outside the US, and the applications were filed before January 1 1996. Had they been filed after that date, a statute (35 USC 104) permits the introduction of evidence concerning work performed anywhere in the world.

One of the key issues in the complex of problems surrounding exhaustion is the question of whether goods bearing the mark of a trade mark owner have been put on the market with that owner's consent. If so, the trade mark owner cannot prohibit parallel-importers from importing the goods into the EEA, according to article 7, section 1 of the Harmonization Directive (89/104/EEC).

Lucian Enescu In Romania, the holder of a previously registered trade mark (or application), or of a notorious trade mark may, under law no 84/1998, file an opposition to the registration of a new trade mark (within three months from the date when it was published in the Official Gazette). The opponent may consider the new sign as being prejudicial to their previous right if it is identical or similar to their own trade mark or if it protects identical or similar products as the ones protected by their own trade mark. An assessment in the case of identical marks is simpler. For similar trade marks, three possible types of similarity must be considered when analyzing a new trade mark for registration: visual, phonetic and semantic.

? China: An appeal court in Shanghai has banned seven former Unilever employees from appealing any further against a verdict finding them guilty of making fake shampoo worth Rmb1.27 million

Antonina Pakharenko-Anderson of Pakharenko & Partners in Kiev examines how to enforce IP rights in Ukraine under the revised laws