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The multi-member Civil Court of Athens recently issued an interesting judgment regarding the criteria when comparing composite trade marks covering pharmaceutical products and consisting of words and coloured devices. The dispute in question referred to a main lawsuit filed against a Greek company regarding infringement of the famous trademark Aspiring. The plaintiff claimed that the colour combination of green and white with black lettering is widely recognisable by consumers as an essential element of its Aspiring product marking and that this combination is associated with the plaintiff. The infringing product was a pharmaceutical product for the relief of pain, antipyretics and analgesic which circulated in the market in a packaging bearing the colours green and white with black lettering and under a different word mark.

When it comes to protecting new technologies, it may be difficult to decide between trade secret and patent protection.

In Dutch court practice, an appeal is of a devolutive nature, that is in appeal the case is reconsidered as a whole. However, in a recent interlocutory decision (November 3 2015, High Point v KPN), the Appeal Court in The Hague found that the patentee was not entitled to further limit his claims.

In September, in Adidas AG v Christian Fellowship Church, the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) issued a non-precedential, but potentially instructive, opinion in which it sustained a petition for cancellation on the grounds of non-use. The case analysed whether sales of only a small number of goods by Christian Fellowship Church constituted "use in commerce" under the Trademark Act.

The Indonesian Domain Name Registry (PANDI) recently established a dispute settlement forum for the country code top-level domain (ccTLD) .id. The forum is called Penyelesaian Perselisihan Nama Domain or Domain Name Dispute Resolution Forum (PPND). The purpose of PPND is to provide an alternative to District Court civil claims for dispute settlement related to the .id ccTLD.

The Kornspitz was invented by the company Backaldrin as a new bakery product several decades ago together with the creation of the German-coined name, since then protected as trade mark in Austria. The name consists of the word "Korn", meaning "grain", referring to the dark dough made out of grain and "spitz", meaning "pointed", referring to the two pointed ends of the elongated and rolled bakery product. It has become one of the most popular bakery products in Austria which everyone knows under the name "Kornspitz", sold every day, although sometimes other designations are used.

In BGW v Bodo Scholz (Case C-20/14), BGW Beratungs-Gesellschaft Wirtschaft opposed the younger mark BGW Bundesverband der Deutschen Gesundheidswirtschaft at the German Patent Office. The Office upheld the opposition brought by BGW in part and partially cancelled the registration of the later mark on account of likelihood of confusion between the two marks at issue. BGW's senior mark is pictured.

The European Commission is pushing ahead with the digital single market, despite serious concerns in the audiovisual industry. James Tobias sets out the developments so far, and what is likely to happen next

As we have previously reported, one of the EPO's chemical boards of appeal has referred the issue of entitlement to partial priority to the Enlarged Board of Appeal. The case is pending before the Enlarged Board under reference G 1/15.

When registering a trade mark in Russia, the question often arises whether it is worthwhile to register a Cyrillic version of the trade mark in addition to the Latin one. The decision is with the trade mark owner who will appreciate having enlightening knowledge of what may happen in this situation though there is no hard and fast rule to decide this or that way.