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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.

In Germany, products that are directly obtained by a patent-protected process are entitled to patent protection according to Section 9, Sentence 2 (3) PatG, even if a claim directed to the product is lacking in the patent. To obtain extended protection, according to German practice, it is a necessary condition that the product as such would at least be accessible to patent protection.

The patentability of biotechnological inventions in Europe is governed by the EU Directive on the protection of biotechnological inventions (98/44/EG, the Biotech Directive). The Directive is implemented in the national patent laws, but has also been used to amend the European Patent Convention.

This month we look at benefits and drawbacks of using the Madrid system to extend international trade mark registrations (IRs) to, as compared with filing national applications in, China. This article is not exhaustive and only covers some of the more important issues raised by this topic.

How could blockchain help fashion and other IP-intensive industries? Ruth Burstall and Birgit Clark investigate its potential use in registration, tracking, enforcement and payment