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Yearly Archives: 2015
Game Changers or Lion Tamers?
Lion tamer?
We were glad to be joined at the Keltie offices on the 30th of September by the Lawyers’ Business Development Club, for an early morning talk from Ronan Dunne, CEO of Telefónica UK Limited.
Before attending the event, Ronan tweeted a question to be posed to the audience, which also acted as a theme for his talk on his personal career journey: Lawyers – Game Changers or Lion Tamers? (more…)
“Metro”, “Metro Radio” & a question of genuine use
This article, which first appeared in the September 2015 ITMA Review, reviews a case which reiterates that, to prove genuine use, adequate proof of use needs to be submitted.
On 28 September 1994, Associated Newspapers Limited (‘ANL’) applied to register METRO in Class 16 (Registration No. 1586405 of 24 January 1997).
On 3 October 1997, Bauer Radio Limited (‘BRL’) applied to register METRO RADIO for a range of services covering advertising, marketing and promotional services (Class 35); telecommunications and a broad range of broadcasting services (Class 38); and a range of radio entertainment services and other activities including arranging, organising and provision of concerts, live and musical entertainment (Class 41) (Registration No. 2147054B of 23 July 1999).
On 22 May 2000, ANL filed an application for metro.co.uk and metro.com (series mark) under Application No. 2233378 which was published on 8 February 2008 for a wide range of goods and services in Classes 09 (digital music, etc.), 16, 35 (advertising and promotion of business services, etc.), 36, 38 (telecommunication services, etc.) and 41 (publishing services, organisation of exhibitions and shows, etc.). (more…)
EPO Guidelines 2Day Roadshow – Review Part 1 – Rule 164 and General Changes
The EPO is currently running a roadshow for professional representatives around Europe covering changes to the Guidelines for Examination and other matters such as rule 164 EPC, “Doing business with the EPO electronically”, early entry into the European phase, effective use of procedural options, the rule 71(3) EPC procedure and Article 123(2) EPC.
Recently the roadshow made it to London and in this post we take a look at the changes to the rule 164 procedure and also some of the fee related changes. (more…)
Italy has now joined the unitary patent
As previously reported Italy had formally requested to join the unitary patent. We’ve now heard (thanks to ipcopyreader Giuseppe Colucci) that Italy’s request to join the system has now been processed and Italy has become the 26th member of the enhanced cooperation group on unitary patent protection (Spain and Croatia are the two EU countries missing from the club). (more…)
Whose patent is it anyway? (ORoPO)
The statement: “We just want to look into the ownership of company X’s patents and then maybe assign them over after the deal” seems fairly innocuous. But, anyone who has ever worked through a due diligence exercise or even just been asked to assign a few IP assets from A to B knows that IP ownership can get difficult quickly.
One particular issue is whether it’s possible to trust the public record. Is the IP asset owned by company A or did they assign it away at some point in the past to company C who just hasn’t gotten round to updating the register?
This potential lack of accuracy in patent records is now being addressed by the ORoPO project which is a free and open register of patent ownership. (more…)
Managing IP’s Luxury Brands and Retail Forum
Keltie LLP was pleased to sponsor Managing IP’s Luxury Brands and Retail Forum which was held in London on 23 September 2015. Keltie’s panel focussed on design protection, and in particular on strategies involving registered designs. Manuela Macchi chaired the panel, Emily Weal spoke on the benefits of registered designs, and Benjamin Wright from JLR spoke about international filing strategies for registered design. Emily’s slides are available below – watch this space for accompanying blog posts giving more details of the design cases discussed in the talk. (more…)
EPO putting applications in the renewal grace period on hold?
The EPO apparently has a new internal procedure that debuted at some point in the last year which applies when a European patent application enters the six-month grace period for payment of an overdue renewal fee. Once this happens the case file is apparently put on hold so that the Examiner is unable to work on it until the renewal fee has been paid.
IPcopy has heard that a colleague recently tried to briefly discuss a case with an Examiner to see if the claims looked in good shape from the Examiner’s point of view and also when the next exam report might issue. However the case in question was in the grace period for the renewal payment and so the Examiner was prevented from even opening the file to answer what were relatively basic questions. (more…)
Unitary patent and UPC update – September 2015 (Part Two)
Here’s another brief update on all things Unitary patent/UPC.
UK UPC Taskforce
The UK’s UPC Taskforce issued another status update last week. The next Preparatory Committee meeting is scheduled for 19 October.
The Expert Panel of the Preparatory Committee have had a presentation on the IT system and there has also been discussion of the feedback from the court fee consultation. It is also noted that a Code of Conduct is being developed for representatives and proposals for this are being developed with representatives from EPLAW, EPLIT and epi. (more…)
Top 10 Technology Trends (as predicted by a patent database)
With the news that now even drones are going ‘mini’ we have been considering some of our other favourite top trending technologies of the past few years, and briefly looking at how their patent application numbers have progressed.
We should point out that no in-depth analysis has been done here, and we’ve simply performed some quick patent database searching with the phrases used in our titles for our favourite top trending technologies…
- Genomics
No one can deny the importance of studying genetic codes. Genomics not only provides a wealth of information about organisms, but has created vast possibilities for the future of modern medicine.
No-go for Tokyo Olympic logo
Today we have a guest post from Kei Ikuta of the firm Nagashima Ohno & Tsunematsu. Kei Ikuta is a Japanese litigation lawyer specialising mainly in employment law, competition law and sports law.
The Tokyo Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (“TOC”) have decided to withdraw its Olympic logo (picture on the right).
On 24 July 2015, the logo was announced as having beaten 104 other candidates’ designs to be the 2020 Olympic logo. TOC, making the announcement on 1 September 2015, have advised that they would start a new competition to choose a new Olympic logo. (more…)
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