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In a recent trade mark decision the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore, has rejected Starbucks' case against Japanese dairy producer Morinaga Milk and its Mt Rainier trade mark.

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.

It seems that Britney Spears, when she recorded a phonogram of the song "I Love Rock 'n' Roll never thought that one day she would be protected by Russian court. The rights for that song are owned by a US company Sony Music Entertainment, which licensed the rights to its offspring in Russia with the same name Sony Music Entertainment Ltd. This company has the rights for the song on the Russian territory and on the territory of the CIS countries. It monitored TV shows and noticed that TV channel "Friday" ran a show "Heads and Tails" dedicated to Shanghai. That show included the disputed phonogram. Besides, that show was also placed on the Internet at the address www.friday.ru. Sony Music Entertainment Ltd did not authorise broadcasting the song in that show and sued the TV channel.

In a recent ruling (ECLI:NL: RBDHA:2017:15395), the Dutch Patent Court in The Hague had to decide whether or not Vialli contributorily infringed the Dutch part of SCA's European Patent 1 799 083 B1 relating to a toilet paper dispenser housing a roll of pre-cut toilet paper. The granted independent claim, which survived an opposition and appeal before the EPO, requires that the roll of toilet paper and an outlet nozzle of the dispenser are designed so that the interconnected paper sheets, for which specific dimensions were required, are unwound one at a time and emerge with less crumpling from the nozzle such that the toilet paper is consumed in "an optimum and pleasant manner".

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:

The EPO's Enlarged Board of Appeal (EBA) recently issued its long-awaited decision G 1/16 relating to undisclosed disclaimers. The decision lays down under which circumstances the introduction during prosecution of a patent application before the EPO of a disclaimer not disclosed in the application as filed may be allowable under Article 123(2) EPC. The decision essentially confirms the standard defined in decision G 1/03 of 2004.

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.

Although not as frequently as in the past, the Greek courts still require in several instances "uniqueness" of the mark in order to rule in infringement cases that the trade mark at issue is well known. In a recent case, the specialised Division of the Appeals Court in Athens handed down a judgment where it is straightforward that "uniqueness" of the mark may not serve as a criterion for a trade mark to gain a well-known status.