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The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on April 14 2000 handed down a decision that required the Director (prior to March 29 2000, the Commissioner) of the United States Patent and Trademark Office to retract his own earlier refusal to permit a patent applicant to correct, pursuant to PCT Rule 91.1 and 37 CFR 1.183 (a US Patent and Trademark Office rule) an incorrect patent application number contained in a Demand for International Preliminary Examination. This decision, Helfgott & Karas, PC v Dickinson, 54 USP Q2d 1425 (Fed Cir 2000) concludes that the Director "acted arbitrarily and capriciously in dismissing the plaintiff's petition to correct the erroneous Demand for International Preliminary Examination", inter alia, because PCT Rule 91.1 is legally binding on the Director and allows the correction of "obvious errors" in certain PCT filings, including such Demands.

Deals

The Spanish Government has drafted a new Trade Mark Law which will be presented to the Spanish Parliament for debate later this year. The new law will tighten the existing 1988 law by enforcing the Spanish Constitutional Court ruling which argued that competence in some matters of trade marks should correspond to the Spanish Autonomous Communities; some provisions of the Protocol and TRIPs Agreement; harmonization with the Community Trade Mark Regulation and the complete implementation of the Trade Mark Law Treaty including the introduction of the multi-class system.

The European Commission has taken a big step towards the implementation of the European Community Patent. On July 5, following discussions at the Lisbon and Fiera summits, internal market commissioner Frits Bolkestein announced that the single EU patent should be available by the end of next year.

The Andean Court of Justice has just passed an important decision concerning the implementation of Decision 344. Jose Barreda explains that the decision will lead to greater conformity between the member states

Franchising has a big role to play in internet business. As the e-conomy takes off, Mark Abell and Andrew Scott argue that traditional views of market exclusivity in Europe must be changed

Tomorrow's biggest industries will all be driven by technology. Robert Stoll, of the USPTO, takes a timely look at the significance of patent law as an engine of economic development and improvements in human life

Tacking allows you to secure priority for your US trade marks by citing earlier registrations. But Thomas M Williams warns that recent cases have limited trade mark owners' ability to tack old marks on to new ones

Related Information

The legal status of information available on the internet has been cast into doubt again, with the latest copyright case brought by a UK estate agent.