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The Supreme Court published a ruling in 2015 in a design patent infringement lawsuit that aroused some controversy.

On March 22, the Beijing IP Court issued a decision addressing standard essential patents (SEPs) related to a China standard – WLAN Authentication and Privacy Infrastructure (WAPI). The Court ruled in favour of the plaintiff – a Chinese technology development company IWNCOMM against Sony, which sells mobile handsets. The Court awarded more than Rmb9 million ($1.3 million) in damages. But what is more noticeable in the decision is the Court's rulings on the doctrine of patent exhaustion, indirect infringement, injunctions for SEPs and the determination of damages.

The PRC Trade Mark Office (TMO) has had a long-standing policy prohibiting class 35 service mark coverage for "retail services" and similar descriptions. This policy has been directly and indirectly challenged through recent changes in the Nice Classification, judicial decisions and comments by many Chinese legal scholars. But for the time being, the policy remains largely intact.

These days some restaurants offer a selection of knives to choose from. On such a tray you might find a Laguiole knife. Laguiole knives are produced in the small village of Laguiole, located in the Massif Central region of France, thus "Laguiole" originally is neither a trade mark, nor a company name. However since the name Laguiole has become associated with high-end traditional knives, the interest in the protection of the word Laguiole has been growing accordingly. It is not your typical trade mark history and is the reason why the appeal decision of April 5 from the CJEU (C-598/14) caught my eye.

In a recent decision of the Court of Appeal of Athens, it has been found that the likelihood of confusion of the consuming public, resulting from the infringement of a distinctive title (a brand name, in breach of the fundamental principle of priority (first come, first served), as well as the provisions on unfair competition) is not removed by any possible provisions of a purely administrative nature.

In the case underlying decision X ZB 1/16 ("Ventileinrichtung") discussed below, an opponent attacked a patent-in-suit based on lack of patentability. The Opposition Division of the German Patent and Trademark Office (DPMA) maintained the patent-in-suit as granted. In appeal proceedings, the complainant (opponent) introduced inadmissible extension as a new ground of opposition. The German Federal Patent Court (BPatG) fully revoked the patent-in-suit on the basis of inadmissible extension. The patentee filed an appeal on points of law against the BPatG's decision.

It is well known that the EPO generally applies a rather strict approach when examining whether or not amendments made after filing extend beyond the contents of the application as filed. One frequently occurring type of claim amendment is the replacement or removal of a feature from a claim. According to a landmark decision, T 331/87 of 1989, the replacement or removal of a feature may not violate the provision governing added subject-matter (article 123(2) EPC) if the skilled person would directly and unambiguously recognise that:

Once the Unified Patent Court is up and running, patent owners and defendants will have some interesting choices to make about representation

The number of pharma patent complaints at the International Trade Commission was up greatly last year. Natalie Rahhal analyses what is driving this and what benefits the ITC brings for pharmaceutical companies

The USPTO recently made permanent a pilot programme to conduct random audits of post-registration affidavits of use. Jason Vogel and Sam Kilb explain what trade mark owners need to know about the changes and suggest best practices