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It is a common assumption that when the respondent in an opposition case is declared in default for failure to file his answer, and the hearing officer decides on the basis of the evidence submitted by the opposer, the respondent loses and his trade mark application is rejected. That was not the case in Smith & Nephew Inc v Livingstone Healthcare Corp docketed as IPC No 14-2014-00176 decided by the Bureau of Legal Affairs (BLA) of the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IPOPHL) on February 1 2017. The contested application was for the mark Adler covering surgical instruments, filed by Livingstone in 2013.

As Turkey is a member of EPC, any provision of the EPC has the power of national law and can be directly applicable for European patents validated in Turkey. However as is well known, the EPC does not have many provisions binding the national courts. One of them is Article 138/3 which gives the European patent owner the right to limit the patent in the event of an invalidation action and orders the national court to take the limited version of the patent as the basis of invalidation proceedings.

Restoration of the omission to pay an annuity fee for the Dutch part of a European patent is only allowable under Article 23 of the Dutch Patent Act if the patent proprietor (and his representative) exercised all due care. This was recently decided in a case between Flawa and the Dutch Patent Office (DPO) before the court in The Hague.

In a recent decision, the Trademarks Administrative Commission ruled on a case regarding the infringement of a famous trade mark. In particular the applicant filed an application for the trademark Coco & Silk and device, covering goods in classes 14, 18 and 25. The opposing party, Chanel SARL, filed an opposition against the acceptance of this trade mark claiming infringement of its famous trade mark Coco covering goods in classes 14, 18 and 25. The applicant, in defence, claimed that the distinctiveness of its trade mark lies on the combination of the two words, Coco and Silk, as well as on the device contained in the opposed trade mark. To support its argument, it provided evidence that the word Coco forms part of several composite national trade marks belonging to third parties, covering similar goods in classes 14, 18 and 25, all of which co-exist. As claimed by the applicant, the existence of these trademarks proves that the word Coco is of weak distinctiveness.

On March 2 2017, the State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO) of China announced its decision to amend the Patent Examination Guidelines, effective as of April 1 2017. The new Guidelines provide significant changes to software patents, data supplementation for pharmaceutical patents and claim amendments in the invalidation procedures.

In Thailand, the leading ground for trade mark rejections is the finding of descriptiveness. Much to the dismay of applicants, descriptiveness rejections at times differ from findings in other trade mark offices. For example, some examiners reject applications when they are descriptive of anything, as opposed to using the more internationally accepted criteria where marks should only be rejected on descriptiveness grounds if they merely describe a characteristic of the goods or services specified in the application.

Even James Bond can boast about having ridden on one. Hispano – Suiza was one of the world references of luxury and competition cars at the beginning of the 20th century and was affected by the Spanish Civil War – not being able to relaunch in the market despite its fame.

According to German Patent Law the courts are bound by the grant of a patent by the respective Patent Office. In consequence thereof they cannot hold a patent as null and void: an action for declaration of non-infringement cannot be based on the lack of patentability of the patent. However, a defence against an infringement action is possible by pleading that according to the state of the art the infringing object is covered by that state of the art or an obvious derivation of it and therefore cannot fall under the scope of the patent if that patent (the claims) would otherwise be infringed only in an equivalent way. But such a defence is consequently denied if the claims would be infringed literally – because then that defence based on prior art is equivalent to a claim of nullity of a patent which the courts are not allowed to judge due to the concept of bifurcation. This sort of defence, namely that the infringing object is made according to prior art, is called in Germany Formsteineinwand after a decision of the German Supreme Court ruling on such a defence.

IP rights – among which is the right of the trade mark owner– enable the holder to exploit with exclusivity certain intangible assets. Every time a misappropriation or trade mark infringement takes place, the owner of the trade mark that is subject to infringement also suffers damage, due to the simple fact that a third party is using a similar or identical trade mark without their consent.

In the past, although the IP Office recognised the fame enjoyed by popular movies, such recognition did not render these titles to be famous marks by default. Nowadays, considering that the production companies of well-received movies or TV shows are apt to release many tie-in products and that a box office hit often promises high public awareness, the IP Office has made it clear in Article 4.7 of the Examination Guidelines on Distinctiveness of Trade Marks that "[t]he titles of works, including books, films, and dramas, shall be deemed to have acquired their distinctiveness if, after extensive exposure, they have implanted a vivid impression in the minds of consumers". On this score, the copyright owners or parties with the copyright owner's consent are entitled to register such titles as trade marks.