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Customers of software resellers such as UsedSoft who buy an updated user licence may download the software from the copyright owner's website, the Court of Justice of the EU ruled last month.

Peter Leung and Emma Barraclough, Beijing

In Austria there is a producer of sweet products famous for its foamy sweets in the shape of a bomb. The outer form of those sweets was denied trade mark protection back in 1976 since their bomb form is technically the best way to produce such sweets out of sweet foam. In 1969 the producer also applied for trade marks for a transparent packaging with specially designed compartments for the individual foamy sweets, one without such sweets and one filled with them, claiming trade mark protection for the specific three-dimensional form. This so-called six pack consists of two rows of three compartments each. The marks were so registered. The producer has since sold five million of such packages per year and has a market share for that type of sweet of 80%.

An arbitration panel has transferred the domain name remarkable.eu back to the Belgian company Remarkable Europe.

US online companies Google and Amazon led the way in applications for new gTLDs last month, as the list of 1,930 applications was published by Icann. Unveiling the list in London, Icann president and CEO Rod Beckstrom described it as "an historic day" adding: "The internet is about to change forever. A powerful change is coming."

The new Patent Marking Measures came into operation on May 1 2012.

As the 1,930 applications for new gTLDs were revealed last month, it quickly became apparent that there had been a lot of applications for similar domains, with .app for example having 13 and .home 11. Off-stage at the Icann meeting in Prague, therefore, the applicants were discussing arrangements for who would own which.

In German patent cases, expert witnesses often provide opinions that are crucial to the outcome of a trial. In nullity suits before German courts a party who has had an opportunity to comment on the professional and personal suitability of an expert witness suggested by the opposing party, but did not make at least basic inquiries and accepted this expert witness, cannot later on change his mind and reject the witness.

In a recent judgment issued by the Single Member Court of Athens, several issues were addressed regarding design rights, the overall get-up of fitness products and unfair competition.

The USPTO has announced it will open three new satellite offices in addition to Detroit – Dallas, Texas; San Jose, California; and Denver, Colorado. The announcement came just over one week before the USPTO's first satellite patent office opened in Detroit, Michigan. USPTO commissioner for patents Peggy Focarino said that the size and focus of each new office will differ according to region. In Detroit, the plan is to hire 125 examiners in groups of 25 each, beginning July 16. The 11 administrative law judges (ALJs) that have been hired so far for Detroit will begin even sooner. The number of examiners and ALJs in Denver, San Jose and Dallas will vary, said Focarino. Examiners in Detroit will all focus on mechanical patents for now, while the Texas office may stick to energy-related industries and California to information technology. The USPTO will send site survey teams to all three locations to determine the order in which the new offices will open. The America Invents Act mandated that the agency open at least three new offices by 2014.