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In a lengthy report, the Australian Productivity Commission has recommended significant curtailment of the rights of IP holders in Australia.

The seven-year veil of secrecy was lifted from the details of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) shortly before it was signed earlier this year. The TPP is a trade agreement among Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States and Vietnam. Its stated goal is "to promote economic growth; support the creation and retention of jobs; enhance innovation, productivity and competitiveness; raise living standards; reduce poverty in our countries; and promote transparency, good governance, and enhance labor and environmental protections".

In this case, the plaintiff has produced since 1989 the well-known TV-series The Simpsons which has been shown in German-speaking countries since mid-1994 and in which beer under the fictitious name Duff is consumed. The producer owns EU trade mark number 8351091 for the word Duff for beer (application date June 9 2009 and registered on March 26 2014).

Recently, in Omega SA v Alpha Phi Omega, the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) issued a precedential decision which provided clarification concerning at what point in time a plaintiff must establish fame of its mark in order to support a claim of dilution by blurring in a TTAB proceeding. The case is significant because it may affect the ability of a prospective plaintiff to succeed on a claim of dilution by blurring in an opposition or cancellation proceeding.

The appeal board of the patent office examined an appeal against refusal of registration of the trade mark Svenska Handelsbanken on IR number 1107500 filed by the Swedish company Svenska Handelsbanken АВ (publ) in respect of services in classes 35, 36, 45.

Three years ago, Korea adopted a new patent term adjustment (PTA) system. As many readers know, PTA is a system that allows extension of a patent term to the patent owner to compensate for an unreasonable delay during the prosecution phase.

The Internet of Things (IoT) is gaining in momentum and the expected growth is paramount both in terms of the number of connected devices and regarding the size of the potential business.

Practitioners before the EPO are aware that EPO proceedings are front-loaded. In effect, all evidence, amendments and arguments should be on file as early as possible in the proceedings. This especially applies to inter-partes proceedings, in which late-filed evidence or amendments could place other parties at a disadvantage.

In Taiwan, in the event that a departing employee joins a competitor of his/her former employer and thus breaches his/her contract of employment containing a non-competition clause, the former employer, depending on the degree of injury, cannot only claim damages but also seek an injunction or preliminary injunction to prevent its trade secrets or other intellectual property from being divulged. Back in 2014, TSMC successfully restrained its former head of R&D department from working for Samsung in a lawsuit upheld by the Supreme Court.

Utynam was part of the Managing IP team that published the INTA Daily News at the INTA Annual Meeting in Orlando in May. Here are some of the highlights