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The Dutch soccer team played two World Cup finals in 1974 and 1978. No need to elaborate on the scores. During that period, the German sports multinational Adidas was the sponsor of the Dutch team. Its competitor Puma was personal sponsor of Dutch star player Johan Cruyff. At that time, Adidas and Puma were in fierce competition. Puma forbid Cruyff to play in an Adidas jersey. The parties negotiated and it was agreed that Cruyff's jersey be adapted. Instead of the Adidas three-stripe pattern on the sleeves, worn by the team, Cruyff played with a two-stripe T-shirt.

Two decisions in Europe and the United States have addressed the licensing of standard- essential patents. Andrew Moir, David Wilson, Nic Ruesink- Brown, Joseph Falcone and Allison Alcasabas ask: have the courts provided a helping FRAND?

In Taiwan, the determination of patent validity is a dual-track system. According to the Intellectual Property Case Adjudication Act, the IP Court will independently rule on patent validity issues in IP-related civil procedures. On the other hand, an alleged infringing party can file an invalidation action with the IP Office to challenge the validity of the patent in accordance with the Patent Law. When the validity of a patent is determined differently in final conclusive civil and administrative decisions, how the issues would be dealt with has thus received much attention. In this regard, in a recent rehearing case relating to a civil patent infringement litigation, the IP Court and the Supreme Court came to different opinions.

In Solid 21 v Hublot of America, et al, the US District Court for the Central District of California issued a ruling holding that once a term has become generic, it is always generic and cannot be the subject of trade mark protection under any circumstances even if the purported owner can demonstrate secondary meaning in that term.

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Since 2001, Australia has had a second tier innovation patent system that provides a very fast patent grant with a limited term, delayed examination and no obviousness test, but rather a reduced innovative step test.

In a recent decision, the Tribunal de Grande Instance de Paris has confirmed that the rules of professional secrecy applicable to the French IP counsel profession (Article L422-11 of the Intellectual Property Code) include absolute professional secrecy which extends to professional correspondence exchanged between the French patent counsel and a client, a third party, a colleague or a lawyer.

In a notable decision (BGH X ZB 1/15, "Flugzeugzustand"), the German Federal Supreme Court (BGH) has resolved questions concerning the definition of a mathematical method "as such".

By its interlocutory decision dated July 17 2015 (T 557/13), one of the EPO's chemical boards of appeal has referred the issue of so-called self-collision or toxic divisional to the Enlarged Board of Appeal. In essence, the questions to be addressed by the Enlarged Board relate to possible citability under article 54(3) EPC of a parent application against its own divisional or vice versa. Such citability is in principle rendered possible if the following conditions are met:

The Administrative Court of First Instance of Athens recently delivered a well-founded judgement on the infringement of a well-known trade mark.