One of the open questions is the extent to which case law, developed by the European Union's courts, will be binding or persuasive on courts in the United Kingdom after 1 January 2021. The basic principle is that any case law made before the end of 2020 will continue to...
Brexit and Intellectual Property
The withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union raises a number of questions regarding the impact on existing and future intellectual property rights. The end of the Brexit transition period set out in the Agreement on the Withdrawal of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland...
UK Design Rights after Brexit
As from the end of 2020, registered designs in the European Union will no longer be protected in the United Kingdom. The UK will be establishing a comparable design right for all holders of existing registered designs.
Implementation of the updated European Copyright Directive
The recent European Copyright in the Digital Single Market Directive ((EU) 2019/790) came into force on 6 June 2019. As is usual for Directives, each member state of the European Union must implement the Directive into its national laws. The deadline for this directive is 7 June 2021 and in...
Protecting Trade Marks Internationally
Let's suppose that you've filed your first trade mark in your home country. This registration will only protect your brand name in that country and the question soon arises - how do you protect trademarks in other countries? One of the simplest ways is to file for international trademark registration...
Intent-to-Use Trademarks in the United States
In the United States, trade marks can be based either on actual use in commerce or a bona fide intention to use the trademark. The trademark will not actually be registered until the applicant files Statement of Use with evidence of the use of the trademark in the United States.
Assigning Rights to Inventions in Germany
How does an employer claim the rights to an invention made by an employee in Germany? In most countries, employment agreements (at least for engineers and scientists) have a provision that says that all inventions made during employment belong to the employer. The inventor's right to be named as an...
Challenging Domain Names
The creation of the large number of new "top-level" domains has lead to a potentially massive increase in the number of domain names that conflict with brand names, such as registered (und unregistered) trade marks or company names. Under ICANN's Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy (abbreviated to "UDRP"), most types of...
UK Trade Marks after Brexit
As from the end of 2020, trade marks registered in the European Union will no longer be protected in the United Kingdom. The UK will be establishing a comparable trade mark for all holders of existing registered EU trade marks. There will be no changes to protection in other EU...
Don’t fly into the same trap as British Airways – monitoring brands on the Internet
Two years, the British International Airlines Group, which includes the national carrier British Airways, suffered a major data breach in which hackers stole the details of thousands of customers, including credit card details. Not only did the hackers exploit a known vulnerability in Javascript on the airline’s website, according to...