Nike, Puma and the issue of ‘FOOTWARE’
When Nike applied to register the word mark FOOTWARE as a UK trade mark, Puma opposed the application. The issue was recently resolved in the High Court.
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When Nike applied to register the word mark FOOTWARE as a UK trade mark, Puma opposed the application. The issue was recently resolved in the High Court.
During appeal proceedings, the Board of Appeal may refer a question to the Enlarged Board of Appeal if a point of law of fundamental importance arises. On this basis, in February 2019, the Board of Appeal (for appeal number T0318/14) referred the following questions to the Enlarged Board of Appeal:1. Can a European patent application be refused under Article 97(2) EPC if it claims the same subject-matter as a European patent granted to the same applicant which does not form part of the state of the art pursuant to Article 54(2) and (3) EPC?2.1 If the answer to the first question is yes, what are the conditions for such a refusal, and are different conditions to be applied where the European patent application under examination was filed
Reddie & Grose is participating in London Climate Action Week 2021. We will explore sustainable innovations including plastic alternatives, fashion, food and home technology; and how IP can help drive these developments to tackle the climate emergency.
Smiley Miley, Inc. (‘SMI’), the company owned by American singer Miley Cyrus, has won a six year legal battle to register the trade mark MILEY CYRUS in the EU. The General Court of the European Union (‘the GC’) issued its decisions on 16 June 2021, overturning the refusal of this trade mark application by the EU Intellectual Property Office (‘the EUIPO’).
This article is the second in our renewable energy patent tracker series. The first, published early March 2021, compared patent trends for renewable energy generation technology from 2016 to 2020 with data from the first two months of this year. Using the Y02 classification scheme developed by the EPO for labelling climate change mitigation technologies, we compared the number of publications in different renewable energy fields (solar PV, solar thermal, wind, geothermal, hydro and from the sea) and ranked the biggest patent filers in these areas. In this instalment, we update our statistics for this year, incorporating data from up until the 19th May, and extend our trend analysis over the ten years leading up to 2021.
The General Court of the European Union (‘the GC’) has issued its hotly anticipated decision in Hasbro Inc. v European Union Intellectual Property Office (‘EUIPO’). This case centres on whether one or more EU trade mark (‘EUTM’) registrations owned by Hasbro Inc. (‘Hasbro’) for the trade mark MONOPOLY are invalid because Hasbro’s intentions, when re-filing a mark that was already protected by an EUTM covering the same goods/services, was to undermine the requirement to prove use of an EUTM.
IP Stars 2021: Alan Bates, Alice Findlay, Patrick Lloyd, Ian Loveless, Nick Reeve, Tom Sharman and Helen Wakerley
In their recent decision (T1839/18), the boards of appeal re-affirmed the legality of straw man oppositions. Although this in itself is not news, we felt it offered a good opportunity to look again at the many advantages of anonymously opposing a European patent.
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