Search results for

Speedo was so concerned about its clean reputation in Australia that it went to court to shut down a blogger who was using its brands on salacious websites, and last week won a wide-ranging order

The growth rate of ccTLDs in 2011 increased by more than 10%, meaning the downward trend in registrations that began in 2007 is beginning to reverse.

Bipartisan legislation to crack down on online IP infringement has come under attack from campaigners and businesses who claim the bills go too far and are unenforceable. S-968, the Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property (PROTECT IP) Act and House Bill HR-3261, the Stop Online Piracy Act, target infringing offshore web sites by taking action against third-party facilitators, such as domain name registrars and credit card processors. Katherine Oyama, policy counsel for Google told a House Judiciary Committee meeting chaired by Lamar Smith of Texas that the definition of a rogue site is “overbroad”. Robert Holleyman, president and CEO of the Business Software Alliance, has said that more work needs to be done. The White House has also declined to endorse the legislation.

At the end of September French software developer GroupCamp received a letter from Texas-based non-practising entity Lodsys accusing it of infringing its patents and inviting it to negotiate a licence. Now its founders have launched a website asking companies in the same situation to pool their knowledge and share prior art to defeat Lodsys’s patents. Managing IP spoke to Dickel Sooriah about GroupCamp’s unusual tactics

Amending patent applications in China can be difficult. Wang Guilian, a serving examiner of SIPO’s Patent Reexamination Board, offers some advice on how to get it right

Wim Van der Eijk has been appointed vice president of the European Patent Office, in charge of the Boards of Appeal. Van der Eijk, 54, will take over from Peter Messerli, who is retiring at the end of November after 15 years in the role. The appointment is for five years. Before joining the EPO, he was chief legal officer of the Netherlands Patent Office and manager of its patent division. He also worked in the Ministry of Economic Affairs of the Netherlands, as well as serving as an honorary judge at the District Court of The Hague, In April this year, Messerli received Managing IP magazine's Outstanding Achievement Award.

In the light of recent cases in Europe, Catriona Smith and Colin Fowler argue that registered designs can be a useful tool for good designs that cannot be protected in other ways

For businesses, a .brand gTLD can look exciting on paper. New business opportunities and increased internet security appear enticing. But once they have committed to applying for a new gTLD, applicants must undertake a long consultation process and write their applications. They must provide detailed financial and technical information, and show to Icann that their .brand is a viable project.

The US copyright office has stated that yoga poses cannot be copyrighted, as part of a dispute between practitioners of hot yoga

The world’s first IP exchange, based in Chicago, is set to launch next year. Eileen McDermott asked its CEO Gerard Pannekoek how it will work