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Michael Loney and Natalie Rahhal analyse five IP decisions issued in Canada, two from the Supreme Court and three from the Federal Court

The landscape for IP litigation has improved considerably in Canada. Kevin P Siu and Steven B Garland of Smart & Biggar outline the benefits for global rights owners

Clarity is needed on certain aspects of the law regarding patent claim amendment, argues Víctor Garrido of Dumont Bergman Bider & Co, SC

Brazil’s new Civil Procedure Code came into force last year. Breno Akherman and André Oliveira of Daniel Legal & IP Strategy analyse its impact on IP litigation so far

Plain packaging has become a hot topic in Turkey as controlling the consumption of tobacco has been one of the top priorities of the Turkish government. The government has adopted the 2015-2018 National Programme and Action Plan for Tobacco Control, which stipulates the implementation of necessary provisions related to plain packaging into the relevant legislation.

Trade mark owners need to weigh up various factors when deciding where to bring an infringement action. Sahira Khwaja, Alastair Shaw, Leopold von Gerlach, Ewa Kacperek, Marie-Aimée de Dampierre and Alexis Valot compare procedures and practices in France, Germany, Poland and the United Kingdom

Brexit affects IP in many ways. James Nurton and Kingsley Egbuonu identify five areas where urgent action is needed to provide clarity and ensure a smooth transition

Every week our Americas editor Michael Loney rounds up some of the interesting, amusing and simply weird IP stories from news reports and blogs. Utynam picks out a few recent highlights

H D Lee of the USA, owner of the famous brand Lee for jeans, suffered another setback in its trade mark battle with local company Emerald Garment Manufacturing Co. As far back as 1995, the Supreme Court issued decision in GR 100098 holding that Emerald's trade mark Stylistic Mr Lee is not confusingly similar to H D Lee's trademark Lee, applying the holistic test, despite the decisions of the then Bureau of Patents, Trademarks, Technology Transfer (now the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines) and the Court of Appeals using the dominancy test. This 1995 decision also ruled that while H D Lee was the senior registrant, it failed to substantiate its claim of prior use of the mark dating as far back as 1946, while Emerald was able to provide sales invoices proving actual use since 1975.

In the case of Hewlett-Packard v Digital Revolution (Court of Appeal, The Hague, May 23 2017) a fair number of claims of the patent (EP 2170617) were held to be invalid on the basis of the interpretation of the means-plus-function claims. The appeal court endorsed the interpretation that was used by the EPO Board of Appeal in case T 0096/12.