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“Pretty bad to very very bad” – Brexit and the UPC discussed at the CIPA Symposium
Newspapers reported last week that Christine Lagarde, the head of the IMF, regarded a vote to leave the EU as having “pretty bad to very, very bad consequences” for the UK. This view was echoed by four of the five panelists at the CIPA/IP Centrum Brexit Symposium on Thursday 12 May. The symposium, hosted by Gwilym Roberts, included a contribution from Kevin Mooney who has been heavily involved in preparations for the (hopefully) upcoming unitary patent system.
In this post IPcopy will take a look at the implications for the unitary patent system in the event of a vote to leave the EU. (more…)
Want to be a Judge at the UPC? Recruitment now open
The unitary patent system is moving towards launch with most people anticipating the start of operations to occur at some point next year. The Unified Patent Court is to comprise a registry, Court of First Instance and a Court of Appeal. The Court of First Instance will have a central division based in Paris, with sections in London and Munich, and a number of local and regional divisions spread through the Contracting Member States. The Court of Appeal will be in Luxembourg.
A court needs judges though and the UPC is now looking for applicants to recruit as both the legally qualified and technically qualified judges. The recruitment process is now open and the closing date is just under two months away on 4 July 2016. Vacancy notices can be found here (EN, FR, DE). (more…)
USPTO – Patent Subject Matter Eligibility – May 2016 Update
The USPTO has recently issued an update to their training materials and guidance on subject matter eligibility. The new materials, which may be found here, contain a memo to US patent Examiners and some more examples in the life sciences area. There is an open ended comment period for the general public to make comments about patent subject matter eligibility topics (comments may be sent to 2014_interim_guidance@uspto.gov and will be uploaded for viewing onto the USPTO website). (more…)
Review of MIP’s Luxury Brand & Retail Forum
Manuela Macchi and Emily Weal
On 19 April 2016, two members of Keltie’s Design and Trade Mark Team, Emily Weal and Manuela Macchi, hosted a panel at the Managing Intellectual Property (MIP) Luxury Brand & Retail Forum in New York. Please see here for the conference programme.
The conference was attended mostly by New York based attorneys representing both US and European luxury and retail brand owners as well as by a good number of US private practitioners and a few European attorneys.
The Keltie-hosted panel included also Lynn Schreier, Senior Intellectual Property Counsel of the crystals, jewellery and accessory manufacturer Swarovski and brought to the delegates a European perspective on design protection, pre-product launch design clearance and 3D trade marks as a complement to design protection. (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…)
Lawyers’ Business Development Club – An evening with Bjarne Tellmann
Colin Carroll and Bjarne P. Tellmann
Last week, Keltie was delighted to host the 50th speaker event for the Lawyers’ Business Development Club at our offices at No. 1 London Bridge in London. The guest for this event was Bjarne P. Tellmann, Senior Vice President and General Counsel of Pearson Plc, who joined Colin Carroll, the founder of the LBDC, for a fireside chat about his career path and “Leading Legal Teams in an Age of Innovation and Divergence”.
Black Belt, Brown Belt
Colin and Bjarne opened with the revelation that they both hold belts at karate (Bjarne is a black belt (“though it’s been a few years…”) and Colin is a brown belt) and Colin asked Bjarne what lessons he had been able to take from the discipline. Bjarne noted that in karate you need to be able to keep cool, remember to breathe and just react. It’s important to focus on the moment and learn not to underestimate any opponent, all of which are lessons that he’s taken away into life in general. The other take away from the world of karate is that attaining a black belt is just the start, you never really attain mastery and there’s always something else to learn and experience. (more…)
Intellectual Property Disputes in the UK: the Court of Session
A couple of weeks ago we wrote an article about bringing intellectual property (IP) actions in front of the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court (IPEC). Like the High Court in England and Wales, the IPEC can handle a range of IP disputes. As a result of its streamlined process however the IPEC provides a less expensive option for parties who feel the need to go to court.
For cases with a Scottish angle however there is another option, namely to bring a claim before the Court of Session in Edinburgh. This post provides an overview of Scottish IP disputes and the similarities and differences with the High Court and IPEC in England and Wales.
IPcopy is grateful to have received input from Susan Snedden at Maclay Murray & Spens LLP in the preparation of this post. Any insights may be attributed to Susan while IPcopy claims ownership of any errors that the reader may find! (more…)
Unified Patent Court – April 2016 Update
Today we have an update on progress towards the unitary patent and the implementation of the UPC.
The Preparatory Committee met last week in Luxembourg to discuss a number of matters including the recruitment package for judicial appointments. Adverts for UPC judges should begin to appear from early next month. It is noted that UPC First Instance judges are to be paid in the region of 132,000 Euros per year and Court of Appeal judges will receive 144,000 Euros per year.
The Committee also discussed a draft code of conduct for practitioners. This code of conduct, which is not yet available for review, is expected to be signed towards the end of May. (more…)
US patent eligibility issues after Alice: webinar review
A recent webinar about addressing section 101 issues in US patent prosecution following the Alice decision provided a handy overview of the best way to avoid and counter Alice objections and also helpfully highlighted the relevant USPTO patent eligibility examples to look at when drafting claims to different types of invention. A summary of some of the highlights of the webinar is presented below: (more…)
OHIM* tells K-Swiss to jog on with their 5 stripe mark
Case Review – T-3/15 K-Swiss v OHIM (Représentation de bandes parallèles sur une chaussure) – 4 December 2015 (Decision)
Background
K-Swiss sought registration of the five stripe mark (see blog image) under the CTM designation of International Registration No. 932758 in Class 25 (“athletic shoes, namely tennis shoes, basketball shoes, cross-country and jogging shoes and casual shoes” as of 8 October 2013) on 23 May 2013.
The designation was refused protection on 4 March 2014 under Article 7(1)(b) – devoid of distinctive character. K-Swiss appealed this decision on 23 April 2014.
The Second Board of Appeal (BoA) dismissed this appeal on 30 October 2014 on the basis that the five parallel stripes do not have any original feature, such that they are banal generic embellishment in view of the widespread practice of using a stripe pattern on sports shoes.
The action to the General Court (Second Chamber) was filed on 6 January 2015. (more…)
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