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Željko Topić, head of the Croatian delegation on the European Patent Office's Administrative Council, has been appointed as the EPO's new vice president.

Chinese consumers will soon find the words “patent pending” on their products after new measures to crack down on the false patent marking

The IDN (Internationalised Domain Name) standard was created in 2003 to allow domain names to be adapted to local or regional characters. It therefore permits the registering of names containing letters used in particular countries or regions, such as letters with accents.

As mentioned previously in this column (December 2010), the EPO has amended its procedures immediately prior to grant of a European patent. The changes are effected in Rule 71, and new Rule 71a EPC, which enter into force on April 1 2012, and apply to European patent applications for which a communication under existing Rule 71(3) EPC has not been dispatched by this date.

The German Federal Supreme Court (BGH) has recently put an end to the moot question of whether the registration of a domain provides a right in rem, thus establishing a comparable relation of ownership as existing in relation to IP rights. In its decision on January 18 2012 the BGH had to deal with this question in an action where the claimant sought a sentence against the defendant to agree that the claimant shall be registered as proprietor of the domain gewinn.de (profit/price). The claimant based its claim on Sections 823(1) and 1004(1) of the German Federal Civil Code (BGB). These provide a right to request abatement of a nuisance as a result of an act of tort. However, the entitlement for compensation under the German legal concept of tort requires an infringement of a right in rem in nature comparable to other IP rights.

In the past year, the Mexican Patent Office has issued record numbers of arbitrary and criteria-less final rejections of Mexican patent applications across all technology areas. Most of the rejections have been directed to computer-implemented inventions and business method-related inventions.

For many years, the courts have raised objections to the non-unity of the patent applications and divisional applications. This matter and the provisions of Section 26B of the Patents Act 1983 in Malaysia were addressed in a recent case.

Recently, the Court of Appeal (Hof) at The Hague ruled on the validity of Lundbeck's patent on the antidepressant Escitalopram. The ruling is remarkably different from that in several other countries, particularly in denying the patentability of the product claims.

Most New Zealand patent attorney firms (the author's firm included) advise a large number of clients, some of whom may be competitors. The New Zealand patent attorney profession is small and options for representation can be limited. The impact of this has been recognised previously by the New Zealand Court of Appeal in similar cases.

On December 13 2005, the Polish Patent Office granted protection for a word trade mark Bio-Active, destined among others for the marketing of body care cosmetics in Class 3. As a result of an opposition filed by a third party, the mark was subsequently cancelled. In its reasoning, the Patent Office argued that Bio-Active is not only devoid of distinctive character, but also descriptive in respect of cosmetics, as it indicates their specific properties. In addition, an average Polish consumer will easily understand the meaning of the term bio-active regardless of the level of fluency in English. The Patent Office also stressed that bio-active is a commonly used term on the Polish market for designating properties of various products, substances or their components.