31st Jan 2014
After representations by a number of bodies representing Intellectual Property professionals, the IP Bill has recently been amended to clarify the scope of the proposed criminal offence of copying of registered designs to make it clear that the criminal offence targets deliberate copyists and close copies. The government has also listened to the concerns of […]
27th Jan 2014
On 6th January 2014, the UK Intellectual Property Office (UKIPO) joined the Global Patent Prosecution Highway (GPPH). The GPPH allows an applicant for a UK patent to request accelerated examination of their UK application, based on a favourable examination result received from any of the other 16 participating patent offices, including: Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, […]
24th Jan 2014
The Clean Energy Patent Growth Index (CEPGI) has recently released its results for the third quarter of 2013. The CEPGI is produced and published by US law firm Heslin Rothenberg and is a quarterly report on clean energy patents granted in the United States. The CEPGI tracks the granting of U.S. patents for the following […]
17th Jan 2014
The NOW case involves a trade mark dispute between Starbucks (HK) Ltd (not the coffee chain) and British Sky Broadcasting Group, who both wanted to use the trade mark “NOW” in relation to television subscription or broadcasting services. The marks in question were as follows. and Starbucks (HK) Ltd’s mark British Sky Broadcasting Group’s […]
13th Jan 2014
The legislation setting up the process for filing a single European patent application was agreed forty years ago in 1973 with the first European patent applications being filed five years later in 1978. The number of European patent applications per year has grown over that time from 4000 to over 265,000 (from figures released this […]
10th Jan 2014
Whilst the IP world waits with bated breath for further progress on the Unified Patent Court, in another corner of Brussels, steps are being taken to boost an alternative and often overlooked form of protection: trade secrets. At the end of November 2013, the European Commission published a proposal for a new directive for the […]
3rd Jan 2014
In the wake of the October 2013 Decisions of the Administrative Council, the EPO has recently announced a further change that will come into force in 2014. This change will increase the fee reductions that are available to give financial compensation for the cost of translations of certain documents from an admissible non-EPO language into […]