Bad Faith and Trade Marks in China
As IPcopy discussed back in 2013, Trade Mark Squatting has long been a concern of European businesses considering entering the Chinese market. Too often, European brands which have not registered their trade marks in China at the earliest possible stage, find that their trade marks are already registered to third parties without a legitimate interest in the mark by the time China features as a potential market in their business plans.
This can cause significant disruption to businesses as these earlier ‘bad faith’ applications act as bars to their own applications. Further, whilst trade mark registration is not a legal requirement to trade in China, many businesses find that their Chinese partners will actually request it as a condition to operate. The consequences of having one’s trade mark application refused in China because of an earlier bad faith application are, therefore, compounded, as walking away and trading without a registered mark may not be a viable option. (more…)
Forthcoming events: Managing IP’s “IP in Asia Forum”
China joined WIPO in 1980 and only established its patent system in 1985. However, in the early 2000s China began to become a significant presence on the World IP stage and in the years following 2011 more patent applications were apparently filed in China than any other patent office around the world. More recently the UKIPO has been involved in events to reinforce the “mutual understanding of the importance of intellectual property while also strengthening economic and cultural relations between the UK and China”.
The challenges of gaining IP protection and enforcing it in China along with developments in China’s Patent Law and changes to the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) are to be the subject of MIP’s IP in Asia Forum which runs on 21 June in Paris and 23 June (Brexit D-Day) in London.
Sessions during the Forum include an overview of trade mark protection in China, enforcement of IP rights in China, effective IP protection in Japan, a look at South Korea’s legal IP framework, IP commercialisation and monetisation under sharing economy in China and how to deal with IP infringement in China.
Keltie is delighted to be one of the sponsors for this event and Keltie partners Sean Cummings and Joanne Hopley will be moderators at the IP commercialisation session in London and Paris respectively.
The agendas for the Forum can be found here.
EPO News: Update on Early Certainty (EC)
The “Early Certainty from Search” scheme (ECfS) was launched by the EPO in 2014 to “provide applicants with legal certainty in Europe on pending patent applications early in the process and also to contribute to overall timeliness”.
It is IPcopy’s understanding from EPO sources that the EPO is happy with how ECfS has developed and that there are now plans to extend this into examination and opposition. (more…)
Searching patents in Japan, China, Chinese Taipei and Korea
Despite web browsers’ handy translate functions, it can still sometimes be hard to search for patents in other languages, particularly non-European languages which many of us won’t have a vast amount of experience with. It may have been that to get information about a Japanese patent, for example, one would have to email a Japanese attorney to source the information.
But no more! It seems some at the EPO might have been having a similar problem, and so the EPO’s Asian patent information services have put together a number of instruction guides on how to search patent databases in Japan, China, Chinese Taipei (also known as Taiwan) and Korea – without even the additional translation help of a browser. (more…)
Creating an inventive ideas template
Introduction:
A template is a file that serves as a starting point for a new document. When one opens a template, it is pre-formatted in some way to guide the user.
One simple yet effective way to build a level of discipline into the invention capture process is to define a standard template for inventive ideas and insist it is taken into use. It is worth defining the inventive ideas template with carefully considered fields and guidance tips, which meet the needs of your invention capture process. This will help the inventor community understand what is expected of them. It also ensures inventive ideas are captured in a consistent manner.
If the idea is of potential value and is patentable, then the inventor should complete such an inventive ideas template. Completing the template should be considered as the first step in the patent creation process but it does not constitute the filing of the patent application.
The template should be completed for each discovery or inventive idea that has some potential commercial value or represents a breakthrough in technology. (more…)
Easter Patents
Easter is upon us and across the land thousands of children are planning on celebrating the story of the Resurrection by stuffing themselves full of chocolate. (Those of you idly wondering what the Easter Bunny has to do with the Resurrection of Jesus are cordially pointed to this explanation!)
IPcopy thought we’d take this opportunity to see what kind of Easter related IP we could find…
US Design Patent USD703277 discloses a set of toy bunny Easter egg ears. Of note however is the downright sinister bunny depicted in the drawings (see for yourself below). My 9 year-old son saw this picture and declared “he looks like he wants to kill someone”. Possibly not the angle the draftsman was aiming for… (more…)
The Community Trade Mark is changing – EU reform
Background
Following the publication of the EU Trade Mark Directive and Community Trade Mark (CTM) Regulations Regulation (EU) No 2015/2424 (the Amending Regulation), CTM practice is set for a number of important changes.
The initial changes come into effect on 23 March 2016, with further changes to follow. We highlight below the key points which we think you should be aware of: (more…)
Running efficient and effective Patent Board meetings
Image from Pixabay.com
Introduction:
If an organization is only concerned with handling a few creative / innovative ideas from time to time, then one can probably stay with some handcrafted approach for capturing these ideas, analyzing them and determining what to do with such ideas (file a patent application, keep as a trade secret, publish, etc.). However, as volumes increase, then it is much better to deploy some robust ideas capture, analysis and review process underpinned by a fit for purpose system. This paper looks at how such organizations should run efficient and effective review meetings. (more…)
Rating inventions, patent applications & patents
Image from Pixabay.com
The concept of rating things:
A motion picture rating system is designated to classify films with regard to suitability for audiences in terms of issues such as sex, violence, substance abuse, profanity, impudence or other types of mature content. The movie rating system used in the United States was created in 1968, with the rating system originally consisted of four ratings but now including five. The body that assigns these ratings is the Rating Board, located in Los Angeles.
A credit rating estimates the credit worthiness of an individual, corporation, or even a country. It is an evaluation made by credit bureaus of a borrower’s overall credit history. Credit ratings are calculated from financial history and current assets and liabilities.
A rating is the evaluation or assessment of something, in terms of quality (as with a critic rating a novel), quantity (as with an athlete being rated by his or her statistics), or some combination of both.
Rating inventions, patent applications and granted patents:
This concept of rating also can be applied in the world of intellectual property (IP), and specifically to inventions, patent applications and granted patents. (more…)
Where do IP related risks originate?
(Photo: Ged Carroll – Flickr/https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/)
By its very nature, there are both rewards and risks associated with intellectual property (IP). Risk is the chance of something going wrong, and the danger that damage or loss will occur. Risk management is the process of analyzing exposure to risk and determining how best to then handle such exposure.
Of course, not all IP risks are the same and they may be broken down into a variety of different categories. One such category is ‘origin’ namely identifying from where the IP related risk comes. (more…)
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