The European Parliament finally put its approval to the Trade and Cooperation Agreement between the United Kingdom and the European Union on 28 April 2021 and the Agreement came into full effect from Saturday 1 May. The Agreement includes a number of measures on protection of intellectual property which we...
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International Trademark Registration Strategies
With a few exceptions, such as in the European Union or some African countries, trademarks are territorial rights and only give protection in the country in which the trademark is registered. If you are selling products and services in a large number of countries, then it may be necessary to...
Open Source Software and Patent Infringement
There's a lot of misconception about open-source software an patents. It is possible for an open-source pprogram to infringe a patent
Responding to “Patent Trolls”
How should you respond when receiving a letter about allegations of patent infringement?
No forum shopping for unfair competition cases and impact on combined trademark and unfair competition cases in Germany
A recent decision by the Higher Regional Court in Düsseldorf (reference: 20 W 11/21) states that there is no “itinerant tribunal” in unfair competition cases that occur on the Internet or in other forms of electronic media. In a decision from 16 February 2021, the Appeal Court in Düsseldorf (OLG...
Database Management Systems – the European Approach
On March 1, 2021, the European Patent Office (EPO) updated its Guidelines and the new update includes a substantial new section on how to patent database management systems. Given the importance of data and database protection for, e.g., artificial intelligence, this update could be significant in the next few years....
European Patent Office – draft new guidelines
The European Patent Office revises its guidelines for patent examination every two years and these normally appear in November. The last update was due in November 2020, but has been delayed because of the Covid19 pandemic and these will now come into effect on 1 March 2021. A preliminary version...
Patents and Clinical Trials
It was almost inevitable that there would be allegations of patent infringement on solutions to address the Covid19 pandemic and IP Watchdog has recently highlighted the allegation by Allele Biotechnology and Pharmaceutical's complaint that the Covid19 vaccine manufacturers infringed Allele's US Patent 10,221221 covering a tag used to track vaccine...
Priority Rights in IP
The priority right (or "right of priority") for an intellectual property right, such as a patent, industrial design, or trademark, enables an applicant for the IP right to file an application in another country and have an effective date of filing which is identical to the date of the first filing in the first...
A Patent Grace Period for the United Kingdom?
The British trade minister Liz Truss recently announced that the UK is seeking to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) trade deal. The CPTPP includes a number of provisions on intellectual property (IP) and some of these will require changes to existing UK patent law. The CPTPP requires...