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It has become common practice for parties of any administrative proceeding to ask the Institute of Industrial Property to require a third party, not related to the proceeding, or even its counterpart, to respond to several questions raised by the offeror of the proof. Such evidence is based on Article 203 of the Industrial Property Law, which states the "requirement to provide information and data" so that the authority can conduct inspection.

The recent Kenyan High Court decision of Fibrelink Limited v Star Television Productions Limited is important. This is because it confirms that it is possible to oppose a trade mark application in Kenya on the basis of a common law or unregistered mark. The basis for such an opposition will be Section 14 of the Kenyan Trade Marks Act, which reads as follows: “No person shall register as a trade mark or part of a trade mark any matter the use of which would, by reason of its being likely to deceive or cause confusion or otherwise, be disentitled to protection in a court of justice, or would be contrary to law or morality, or any scandalous design.”

A common dilemma for inventors and applicants before the European Patent Office is whether an invention is sufficiently mature for a patent application to be filed. Although a proof-of-concept is often established at the date of filing, an inventor does not always have the opportunity to investigate every aspect of their invention before a patent is filed.

A new Code of Conduct for Trans-Tasman Patent and Trade Marks Attorneys (the code) came into effect on February 23 2018 to address two issues:

In 1992, the Rio Convention on Biodiversity set the goal of fighting practices known as biopiracy and which are generally seen in developing countries. These involve identifying certain genetic resources of a country and indigenous traditional knowledge that may be linked to their use, developing them, protecting them through patents and extracting commercial gain without any benefit to the indigenous populations in question. The Nagoya Protocol, an extension of the Rio Convention, enshrines a move from mere declarations of intent to concrete measures.

In recent ex-parte appeal proceedings (decision 14 W (pat) 10/16 of January 23 2018), the German Federal Patent Court (GFPC) contributed to the interpretation of Article 3(a) of Regulation (EC) No 469/2009 (the Regulation).

The holder of word mark JOY, Jean Patou Worldwide, filed an opposition against the EU registration of the mark HISPANITAS – Joy is a choice. The Opposition Division upheld this opposition and rejected the application for registration for goods in class 3 on the ground that there was a likelihood of confusion within the meaning of Article 8(1)(b) of Regulation No 207/2009.

The sale of RPX to HGGC at $10.50 per share follows a review of strategic alternatives by the board

In recent years, the protection system for trade mark rights has become more and more mature in China. Non-trade mark rights have also caught the attention of IP practitioners and even outsiders. After all, who can overlook the news that Disney has profited more from merchandise related to Frozen than publishing the movie and DVD? Even people who barely know anything about basketball or IP must have heard that the NBA superstar Michael Jordan has finally stopped a Chinese company from using his surname in Chinese as a trade mark in the Supreme Court. When posting pictures on WeChat's Moments has become a habit for thousands of Chinese people, it is astonishing to think that posting a picture of the night view of the Eiffel Tower could be an act of infringement.

Under Vietnamese law, if a logo is capable of distinguishing the goods or services of its holder from those of others, it can qualify for trade mark protection. If the logo is created personally by the author without copying others' works and is fixed in a material form, it can also be copyrighted as a work of applied art (assuming it meets the minimum creativity threshold).