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Yearly Archives: 2013
New dimension to Louboutin’s Red Sole Saga
Louboutin’s Trade Mark 008845539
The famous brand of shoes with heels and oversized red soles, which since 1992 has been so successful for their creator Louboutin, has long been immersed in a somewhat uncertain legal environment. Now a Dutch Court Adds New Dimension to Red Sole Saga by finding infringement, by Van Haren, of Louboutin’s red sole trade mark. (more…)
Cycling, le Tour Cycliste Féminin and a case of trade mark infringement
On the 21st July 2013, Chris Froome became the second British person ever to win the Tour de France. It was a great day for Britain and for British cycling. The Tour has always been considered as the pinnacle of any professional road cyclist, anyone who wins the tour will have their name etched in cycling history forever, look at Lance Armstrong, he made his mark in cycling did he not?
However, how many people have heard of Nicole Cooke, first Brit and two time winner of the Tour de France … Féminin! You would have thought that that the Tour de France Féminin, would also be the highlight of the year for all female cyclists. Sadly due to the lack of public interest in women cycling, sponsorship each year for the tour was very hard to come by. For many years, stages were held inside cities because they would contribute money towards the tour; this in turn led to long transfers from one stage to the next. (more…)
UK Space Conference – July 2013 – Report
Gemma Sparrow of Keltie LLP and Adam Brocklehurst of K2 IP Limited visited the 2013 UK Space Conference in Glasgow last week. Here is their report from the conference.
Almost £200m of public investment has recently been announced in launcher, satellite, software and other UK space companies, and the government has set a target to ride the wave of this growing industry by capturing 10% of the global market by 2030. For example, £60m is to be invested in the SABRE engine for Reaction Engines’ Skylon space plane.
Unitary patent – The Italian Job
As previously noted on IPcopy here, Italy signed the Agreement on a Unified Patent Court back in February but were not “fully paid” up members of the unitary patent package because they hadn’t joined the enhanced cooperation regime on the unitary patent.
We have previously heard that Italy was considering joining the enhanced cooperation regime but according to a news update here some more positive noises have been heard regarding Italy becoming part of the club. (more…)
Refund of Search and Examination Fees at the EPO – Increased Transparency
Administration Process at the EPO is not the sexiest of IP subjects, this IPCopy writer will admit. But when that process affects your wallet (or your client’s wallet), it becomes a bit more interesting.
The EPO is finally increasing the transparency of the process for the refund of Search and Examination fees, and IPCopy is pleased to have seen it! Here’s a quick look at what the problem has been until recently, and the ‘technical and administrative solution’ that the EPO has now implemented.
The Intellectual Property Bill – Freedom of Information plus Odds and Sods
Parliamentary copyright images are reproduced with the permission of Parliament
In the fifth part of a series on the Intellectual Property Bill, IPCopy summarises the proposals relating to the Freedom of Information Act plus some other remaining odds & sods that haven’t been covered in the earlier posts. [Note: this post looks at the IP Bill as originally published. We will revisit the IP Bill at a later date to look at amendments introduced in its passage through Parliament.]
Unitary Patent Package – hard-coded bifurcation revisited
In an earlier post we pointed out how the Agreement on a Unified Patent Court appeared, by virtue of Article 47(5), to hard-code or hard-wire bifurcation into the system in instances where a licensee was bringing an infringement action. According to the UPC Article (see below) the defendant would need to start separate proceedings against the patent proprietor in order to challenge the validity of the patent.
In the 15th draft of the Rules of Procedure of the Unified Patent Court there were some amendments to Rule 25 (Counterclaim for revocation) which, on the face of it, appear to address this issue. In this post we take a closer look at the changes. (more…)
Social Media Patents – Facebook
A “Facebook”
Recent news stories (Techcrunch, Guardian) have highlighted some patents that have recently granted to Facebook. The three patents mentioned in the articles relate to “Automatic Photo Capture Based on Social Components and Identity Recognition“, “Preferred images from captured video sequence” & “Image selection from captured video sequence based on social components“.
IPcopy has a passing interest in social media related patents (see Twitter articles here) and so we thought we’d take a closer look. (more…)
Trick or Treat – India Joins Madrid Protocol from July 8, 2013
Today on IPcopy we are pleased to welcome guest contributor Vaibhav Vutts from Vutts & Associates LLP, Advocates who is talking about India joining the Madrid Protocol.
The Madrid Protocol [‘Protocol]’comes into force in India from today, July 8, 2013, making India the one of the 90 countries in the Madrid System- 89 members of Madrid Protocol and the lone ranger Algeria as the only member of Madrid Agreement. Now applicants can designate India and get trade mark protection or “international registration” in India based on a ‘basic application’ or ‘basic registration’ in a Protocol member country. (more…)
The Intellectual Property Bill – registered designs
Parliamentary copyright images are reproduced with the permission of Parliament
In the fourth part of a series on the Intellectual Property Bill, IPCopy summarises the proposals affecting registered design rights and registered Community designs. [This post looks at the IP Bill as originally published. We will revisit the IP Bill at a later date to look at amendments introduced in its passage through Parliament.]
Clauses 5 through 13 of the Intellectual Property Bill relate to Registered Community design or Registered Designs. (more…)
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