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Recently, the 14th Senate of the German Federal Patent Court referred new questions to the CJEU on the criteria for Article 3(a) of the SPC Regulation (EC) No. 469/2009 (decision 14 W (pat) 12/17; CJEU: C-650/17) to clarify when a functional definition refers to the product in question.

In this Supreme Court judgment, the appellant claimed that they were the proprietor of the well-known marks Toyota, Innova and Prius and that the respondents were selling auto-parts and accessories in India by using the appellant's registered marks especially the mark "PRIUS" on their products. The appellant had no registration of the mark 'PRIUS' in India, whereas the respondents had a registration for the same in India since 2001. The Appellant however claimed that their mark 'PRIUS' was registered in numerous other jurisdictions since 1990. The Division Bench of Delhi HC vide its order dated January 12 2017 held that even though 'PRIUS' was a well-known mark outside of India, the trans-border reputation of the said mark had to be proved in India. Since the Appellants could not furnish necessary evidence to prove that the mark 'PRIUS' was also well-known in India, the Court ruled in favour of the Respondents. Aggrieved by the said order, the Appellant had filed a special leave petition.

Producers of champagne probably did not have a toast to the recent ruling of the CJEU about protected designations of origin (PDOs). The CJEU has broadened the possibilities for commercial parties to use PDOs, such as "champagne", opening the door to various (allowed) usages of PDOs for products that do not correspond to the product specifications.

The doctrine of "indirect infringement" has long been introduced into the patent systems of European countries and the United States. While there are similar regulations in the patent systems of Asian countries such as Japan and South Korea, no substantial regulations governing conducts involving indirect infringement are embraced in Taiwan's Patent Law. It is thus not of rare occurrence in Taiwan that patent owners proceed to take actions against non-direct infringers by resorting to the Civil Law, alleging that they are joint infringers.

On December 22 2017, the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IPOPHL) published its proposed amendments to the IP Code (Republic Act No. 8293), just before it closed shop for the Christmas break, notifying the public to give their comments and informing it that the amendments shall be forwarded to the Philippine Congress this January 2018. Some of the major amendments are as follows:

At the end of December 2017, Beijing IP Court decided the first GUI (graphical user interface) patent infringement case in China. This case is a battle between two anti-virus software giants: the plaintiff Qihoo 360 currently is the largest cyber security company in China; and the defendant Jiangmin is a pioneer anti-virus software provider in the PC era. Beijing IP Court rendered a decision in favour of Jiangmin.

Although the amended Trademark Law has a new provision on "the principle of honesty and credit" under Article 7, by nature of its generality and flexibility, it is generally not taken as a direct basis for making rulings on opposition and invalidation cases, but is subject to discretion in practice. Article 41 (1) contains the provision on "…obtaining registration through other improper means," but applicable scope was not legally defined. We need to find additional supports from typical cases or guiding opinions by the High Court or judicial interpretation of the Supreme Court. China is not a case law country, at the stage of administrative examination before the Chinese Trademark Office (CTMO) precedent cases are not persuasive, let alone binding. Therefore, facing many obvious pirate applications/registrations, the true owners are not able to find quick recourse before CTMO. Since there has yet to be effective and efficient methods to get back their rightful rights other than by trade mark assignment, if they do not opt to pay exorbitant fees as compensation they have to rebrand for the Chinese market resulting in a heavy burden. This has become a big issue against judicial efficiency and justice, and also has perplexed many American and European trade mark owners thus far.

In Twentieth Century Fox Television v Empire Distribution the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit recently addressed the issue of the appropriate test to apply when an allegedly infringing use is in the title or within the body of an expressive work.

Australia has relatively recently implemented support laws that require a specification to provide sufficient information to enable the skilled person to perform an invention over the entire scope of the claims without undue burden or the need for further invention. These new support laws have been stringently applied by the Patent Office, in particular in relation to claims defining chemical compounds where, in many cases, the only claims considered to be enabled are ones directed to exemplified embodiments.

The case reported here concerns the application for registration of a word mark GROOVE in relation to "condoms" (class 10).