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In general, among the three types of patents, patent for invention offers protection of the broadest subject matters, including products, processes and usages. Patent for utility model aims at protecting product with the shape, structure, or their combination. Accordingly, method, usage, ingredient and the like cannot be protected by utility model. Patent for design protects the appearance of product in the form of shape, pattern, or their combination, or the combination of the color with shape or pattern of product, which creates an aesthetic feeling.

The government of Canada continues to modernise Canada's IP framework to comply with a number of international IP treaties, including the Patent Law Treaty (PLT). Previous amendments to the Canadian Patent Act have been made, but are not yet in force, to comply with the requirements of the PLT. The government of Canada is now in the process of amending the accompanying Canadian Patent Rules, which will guide how the Act is applied. A public consultation on proposed amendments to the Rules runs from August 1 to September 8 2017. In view of the necessary steps in the regulatory approval process in Canada, the amended Rules could be in force by early 2019.

In a landmark decision on patent infringement (Actavis UK Limited v Eli Lilly & Company [2017] UKSC 48), the Supreme Court has confirmed that UK law does provide for a doctrine of equivalents when determining the scope of patent protection.

The recent CJEU judgment and subsequent national interpretation in Rovi Guides v Telenet will have a significant impact on the predictability of legal costs and should be taken into account when setting up an IP litigation strategy in Belgium, as Steven Sarlet and Ben Brigou explain

Concentration, also known as Match Match, Memory, Pelmanism, Shinkei-suijaku, Pexeso or simply Pairs, is a card game in which all cards are laid face down on a surface and two cards are flipped face up over each turn. On May 23 2017 the Court of Appeal in Amsterdam took a decision on Memory, not with regard to the game itself but regarding the Benelux trade mark Memory of Ravensburger BV. Ravensburger appealed against a decision of the Amsterdam Court at first instance to the effect that a third party could use the word "memory" for online games (with the object to turn over pairs of matching cards). The Amsterdam court was of the opinion that "memory" was used in a descriptive manner so that trade mark infringement was out of the question.

In appeal proceedings before the EPO, patentees and applicants frequently withdraw failed requests at the end of oral proceedings. For example, if the patentee's second auxiliary request is allowed, whereas the main and first auxiliary requests are rejected, most patentees will routinely withdraw the main and first auxiliary requests. Such withdrawal may in particular be made with a view to expediting the Board of Appeals' subsequent preparation of the written decision, as no written reasoning is to be prepared in respect of withdrawn requests.

After the new Trademark Law came into effect on May 1 2015, the China Trademark Office (CTMO) started to accept multi-class trade mark applications. Unfortunately, voluntary divisional application and partial assignment, which are common in other multi-class trade mark jurisdictions, are not yet available in China. This deficiency may cause dilemmas from time to time in practice.

Ramon Confectionary, a famous entity in Russia, filed trade mark application number 2013705310 in respect of goods in class 30 (pictured below).

The UK’s departure from the EU threatens to disrupt IP practice in the country – and patent and trade mark firms are already taking steps to mitigate the potential damage. James Nurton reports

The landscape for IP litigation has improved considerably in Canada. Kevin P Siu and Steven B Garland of Smart & Biggar outline the benefits for global rights owners