Search results for

According to Austrian law, reasons for trade mark invalidity, such as bad faith, can be raised as defences in an infringement action. Such defences have to be decided as preliminary questions.

Interim measures and preliminary injunctions are frequently used in Belgian and European (cross-border) patent litigation conflicts. Belgian courts can generally order such measures upon a prima facie assessment of the validity of the claimant's IP rights, which includes neither a full legal analysis nor a substantial technical examination.

On January 6 Alibaba announced a revamp of its TaoProtect online policing system which applies to its online sales portals www.taobao.com and www.tmall.com. Both are Chinese-language trade platforms, the prior ostensibly C2C and the latter B2C.

The French government recently announced that together with the Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations (CDC) it will create a new sovereign patent fund (SPF) called Fonds Souverain de la Propriété Intellectuelle (FSPI).

The Indonesian government has recognised several places as "areas having an intellectual property culture" in order to promote public participation to respect IP rights.

The use of a trade mark is of central importance in trade mark law. The first use of a trade mark may confer first ownership. Establishing the use of a trade mark is also important to mitigate the risk of expungement proceedings due to non-use and forms one of the key conditions to be satisfied in a trade mark infringement action.

Last year, in a major policy announcement, the government of India announced the creation of a think-tank headed by retired Justice Prabha Sridevan. The think-tank has a mandate to draft the first ever national IP policy for the government. The first draft of the new IP policy proposed by the think-tank was published on December 19 2014 and the think-tank has invited comments from stakeholders before the end of January.

Preventing former employees from divulging trade secrets to competitors has been a common concern for Taiwan's technology companies in recent years. In addition to using a contractual mechanism to impose non-competition and confidentiality obligations on employees within a certain period after termination of employment, technology companies generally need the support of regulation sanction and an efficient judicial system to protect their trade secrets.

A monthly column devoted to IP curiosities and controversies, named in honour of John of Utynam

The Uniform Domain Name Resolution Policy (UDRP) provides a very useful tool in trade mark enforcement, as it allows a brand owner to seek to compel the transfer of a domain name which was registered by a third party and is identical or confusingly similar to a trade mark in which the owner has rights. To compel the transfer of a domain name, a brand owner must satisfy a three-prong test. The World Intellectual Property Organization recently issued a decision in a UDRP proceeding in which the Administrative Panel provided a unique interpretation of the third prong of the test.