Search results for

Proposed changes to the Australian Patents Act 1990 have been advanced in recent weeks as Australia looks to address the long-standing perception that its intellectual property arrangements fall short of the required standard. On July 23 2018, IP Australia announced a consultation on proposed legislative amendments included in Schedule 1 to the Intellectual Property Laws Amendment (Productivity Commission Response Part 2 and Other Measures) Bill 2018. The proposed measures include:

Until 2017, it was clear from several decisions of the Austrian Supreme Court that trade marks registered in bad faith were invalid and therefore could be successfully attacked any time and that asserted rights based on them would be rejected as immoral. However, the decisions went further: the mere use of that sign was held to be inadmissible and therefore could be forbidden as such without any other reason.

In Brazil, the courts, rather than the Brazilian Patent and Trademark Office (BPTO), have the final say about the registration or cancellation of a patent, design or trade mark.

As a party to the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), Canada has agreed to adopt important new protections for biologic and other pharmaceutical innovation, as well as other changes to strengthen its patent system and harmonise certain IP laws with its trading partners.

On October 26 2018, the Sixth Session of the Standing Committee of the 13th National People's Congress of the People's Republic of China passed the "Decision of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress on Several Issues Concerning the Proceedings of Intellectual Property Rights and Other Intellectual Property Cases" (hereinafter referred to as the Decision), which made major adjustments to the current appeal mechanism for cases concerning patents and technical secrets. The Decision will take effect on January 1 2019. It will definitely have a significant and far-reaching impact on the trials of China's burgeoning number of technical cases.

The e-commerce market in China is one of the fastest growing in the world. The boom in Chinese e-commerce has been dramatic and exponential. During the Chinese annual Singles Day shopping frenzy in 2018, the world's biggest 24-hour shopping event, Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba hit a record US$30.7 billion in orders.

The name of the castle of Ludwig II of Bavaria, Neuschwanstein, was filed as a European trade mark by the Free State of Bavaria in many classes of goods and services (3, 8, 14-16, 18, 21, 25, 28, 30, 32-6, 38 and 44). As its validity was contested, the question arose as to whether such a name was descriptive of the geographical origin of the goods and services claimed in the application.

We recently reported on the opinion of the advocate general (AG) in the case CJEU (C-121/17) concerning supplementary protection certificates (SPC) and the question of when a product, which is not explicitly mentioned in the basic patent, is protected by the basic patent, according to Article 3 (a) of Regulation (EC) No 496/2009. While it has been clarified that infringement rules cannot be applied, it is still not clear which test should be used for assessing the requirement of Article 3(a). Recently, the CJEU issued a judgment on this case which interestingly differs on this point from the opinion of the AG.

A defendant in preliminary injunction proceedings heard before a Greek court, relating to the infringement of a pharmaceutical patent, may raise an objection to the patent's validity. This option is not free from difficulties as the Greek court, which has jurisdiction to grant an injunction, is not a specialised IP court which has jurisdiction to try the same case in ordinary proceedings, but a court having general jurisdiction on civil and commercial matters.

The PD-1 antibody patent litigation, globally filed in Japan, the United States and Europe, came to an end with a settlement.