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Unified Patent Court – Rules of Procedure – Consultation Open
In news that seems to have excited me far more than my colleagues who sit next to me, comes the announcement that the public consultation relating to the Rules of Procedure of the Unified Patent Court is now up and running. The consultation is open until 1 October 2013 and full details can be found here. The consultation rules draft is here. We also note that the website (www.unified-patent-court.org) contains a wealth of other information including some Questions and Answers about the Unified Patent Court.
We will provide more analysis when we can.
The Fees page is still blank though!
Mark Richardson 25 June 2013
Misleading Invoices: a case study
What do you mean I spent all my pocket money settling a fake invoice?
A while ago we posted an article about misleading invoices that relate to intellectual property rights (patents, designs and trade marks). Here’s a link to that article – Misleading Invoices: a warning.
By way of a quick recap, you will recall that we are talking about communications, that are sometimes received by the owners of IP rights, that resemble official looking invoices for IP services. Such misleading invoices are sent directly to the IP owner and are designed such that they give the impression to the IP owner that they have to either use the service offered or pay the amount listed.
We were recently sent details of the various invoices that one IP owner has received and a quick analysis of the information we’ve seen is quite frightening. (more…)
Unitary patent package – Ratification – Allons-y!
In an earlier post we noted that the French government seemed to be gearing up to be the first EU member state to ratify the Agreement on the Unified Patent Court. Now we’ve been sent (thank you @gibus) a further document that again restates France’s intention to be the first country to ratify the UPC Agreement. Does this mean that IPcopy is finally going to be able to get a player on the pitch in our over-extended and stretched “Ratification as a football match” analogy?
If anyone has further knowledge of the planned ratification timetable in France then please feel free to chime in below.
Mark Richardson 21 June 2013
Trade Mark News Bites
From the the iWatch to the Super Bowl, here’s a collection of trade mark related news stories that have caught our eye in the last couple of weeks.
Unitary patent package – Agreement on a Unified Patent Court republished
The Agreement on a Unified Patent Court was republished yesterday. Those of you priming yourselves to review the agrement for changes can stand down – it’s merely a republication in the Official Journal of the European Union and the only changes are formatting changes!
The final texts of the unitary patent package are therefore:
- Unitary patent regulation – 1257/2012
- Translation regulation – 1260/2012
- Agreement on a Unified Patent Court – 2013/C 175/01
The 15th Draft of the Rules of Procedure of the Unified Patent Court has recently been released but a copy is not currently available. The public consultation on the rules is expected shortly and we’ll update IPcopy as soon as we get a copy.
Mark Richardson 21 June 2013
The Intellectual Property Bill – Unregistered Designs
Parliamentary copyright images are reproduced with the permission of Parliament
The majority of the Intellectual Property Bill relates to changes to the protection of designs. Following the Hargreaves Review of Intellectual Property and Growth, the UK Intellectual Property Office carried out a work programme to determine potential improvements to the current design framework. This led to a consultation in July 2012 with proposals to amend the current system for both unregistered design rights and registered community designs. In turn, the proposals in the Bill have basis in the work carried out by the IPO following the Hargreaves Review.
In the third part of a series on the Intellectual Property Bill, IPCopy summarises the proposals affecting unregistered design rights. [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.]
The Unitary Patent and the Fee-saving Myth: Time to put that misleading £20,000 figure back in its box, please.
Over at IPCopy, we’re annoyed. Sighs are echoing around the open plan. Hands are being thrown up into the air in despair. Ipcopymark is particularly riled, and had to be placated with a helping of pork pie.
What could have ruffled our collective feathers, I hear you ask? Well, the UKIPO website has a new webpage with details of the UK Intellectual Property Bill. This in itself is not the source of our aggravation (indeed, there is some good juicy stuff to be found there, including a link to a marked-up copy of the proposed changes to legislation, and details of the proposed secondary regulation, which the IPCopy team has been surveying with interest1), but this informative new webpage includes something that really got on our wick.
Eleven of Hearts – Bale’s Trade Mark
Following in the footsteps of other world-class footballers wishing to take advantage of the growing commercialisation of football (or “soccer” for our American friends), Gareth Bale has applied to register his famous heart-shaped goal celebration as a trade mark at the UK Intellectual Property Office. Details of Bale’s application for the word mark ELEVEN OF HEARTS can be found here, while the application for the logo can be found here.
With either a big-money transfer to the King of Spain’s Real Madrid or a large contract-extension in the pipeline, the Tottenham Hotspurs’ Number 11 could be forgiven for rolling over on his bed of £50 notes and going back to sleep. However, given that the average footballer’s career spans around fifteen years, IPcopy would not be surprised to see more and more footballers bringing out their own branded football boots (like Ronaldo’s R9 or Cristiano Ronaldo’s CR7 boots, both released in partnership with Nike) or tiny briefs (à la David Beckham).
As for choosing which trade mark to protect, they would have to go some way to beat the imagination of NBA player Anthony Davis, who spent part of his first pay-check obtaining trade mark protection (“FEAR THE BROW!”) for his prominent uni-brow – check out the brow in his headshot here!
Nick Bowie 18 June 2013
Trade Mark and Carry On (Posters, Trade Marks & the Tardis)
“Trade mark and carry on” is a slogan to bear in mind because, as the following cases illustrate, people often think a name, slogan or even a police box are free to use.
We see a good example with the famous slogan “Keep Calm and Carry On”, which was thought to be owned by the British government. Indeed, “Keep Calm and Carry On” was one of a series of propaganda posters made by the British government during World War 2 to reassure the population, a fact which remained unknown to the public for over half a century. In the early 2000s, a couple (named Manley) who owned the Britsh bookshop “Barter Books” rediscovered the posters in a box of old books.When the booksellers decided to display it in their library, it became very popular. The “Keep Calm” poster was exported worldwide and became one of the first really emblematic images of the 21st century.
Unitary patent – Presentation from LES Meeting
On the 13th June 2013, the Licensing Executives Society of Britain and Ireland held a meeting entitled “Europe’s New Unified Patent Court – for better or for worse?“. The meeting was chaired by the Rt. Hon. Professor Sir Robin Jacob and included a number of distinguished speakers associated with the world of IP: Richard Vary (Head of Litigation at Nokia), Arnaud Michel (Gide Loyrette Nouel), Alan Johnson (Bristows) and Ian Wood (Charles Russell). Oh, and me (so an 80% distinguished speaking panel then).
The meeting covered a number of aspects of the proposed Unitary Patent system (or “A European Tragedy” as Sir Robin Jacob put it). My presentation is attached below along with a brief overview of my slides.
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