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A US district court has invalidated seven patents on human genes, in part based on the Federal Circuit's ruling in In re Bilski

A series of court cases has unexpectedly found exceptions for China OEM producers from trade mark liability. Deanna Wong and Tao Yang explain that while it might not affect courts in the long run, it’s already influencing Customs

Zoe Lofgren James Sensenbrenner Lamar Smith At the end of June the US House of Representatives passed a patent reform bill six years in the making, joining the Senate in passing legislation shifting the US to a first-to-file system. The impact (see box) has not been altered fundamentally by the various amendments, but their debate was certainly controversial. The bipartisan vote of 304-117 featured an extremely rare re-vote and an unrelated disruption by protestors.

Eileen McDermott, Karen Bolipata and Simon Crompton report from INTA’s Annual Meeting in San Francisco

The Romanian State Office for Inventions and Trademarks (SOIT) has rejected a national combined trade mark application Slims EA, filed for registration for products in class 34 "unprocessed, semi-processed or processed tobacco; tobacco products; cigarettes; cigars and cigarillos; cigarette filters/cigarettes; articles for smokers; matches/lighters and ashtrays for smokers that are not made of precious metals" due to the conflict with the previous national combined trademark Eve, registered for products in class 34 "tobacco, raw or manufactured including cigars, cigarettes, cigarillos, tobacco for roll your own cigarettes, pipe tobacco, chewing tobacco, snuff tobacco; tobacco substitutes (not for medical purposes); smokers' articles, including cigarette paper and tubes, cigarette filters, tobacco tins, cigarette cases and ashtrays not made of precious metals, their alloys or plated with such; pipes, pocket apparatus for rolling cigarettes, lighters; matches".

Pooja Dodd and Arpan Banerjee from IP Gurus look into the differences between UK and Indian efforts in addressing groundless infringement threats

The latest draft of ACTA was published this week. Managing IP provides a summary of comments so far

Grant Shoebridge and Jacinta Flattery-O’Brien of Shelston IP review the issues raised by a parliamentary inquiry into gene patents

James Nurton, London

A review of 11 cases shows that pharmaceutical patents in Russia are being upheld despite having been invalidated in Europe. Yana Lipatova says companies should carefully review the grounds in each case