27th May 2020
This blog covers invalidity decisions issued by the EUIPO during the first quarter of 2020, from 1 January 2020 to 31 March 2020. Our previous blog covering the decisions issued during the fourth quarter of 2019 can be found here.Registered Community designs (RCDs) protect the shape and appearance of new products across the whole of the EU. Since national court decisions on RCDs are rare, decisions by the EUIPO’s Invalidity Division help us to understand how the validity of an RCD is interpreted.
26th May 2020
In 2011 the EUIPO launched the “Convergence Programme” in order to improve the alignment of national and EU trade mark systems and to assist with the improvement of practices. The programme was based on regular exchange of information and discussion of issues among the EUIPO, national offices and user associations. On 1 April 2020 the EUIPO published CP9 Common Practice: “Distinctiveness of three-dimensional marks (shape marks) containing verbal and/or figurative elements when the shape is not distinctive in itself”.This sets out a two-step examination process for assessing the distinctive character of such marks.
23rd Apr 2020
26 April 2020 is World Intellectual Property Day. World Intellectual Property Day is an event established by the World Intellectual Property Office (WIPO) to inspire the public to “learn about the role that intellectual property rights play in encouraging innovation and creativity”. Each annual event has a theme and this year’s theme, focussing on climate change, is “Innovate for a Green Future”.
30th Mar 2020
For some time now, it has been known that the Chinese government provides financial incentives to Chinese nationals and Chinese companies that file domestic and foreign patent, utility model, registered design, and trade mark applications. The Chinese government, for example, subsidises official fees and attorney fees, offers tax breaks, provides financial support, and issues rewards for patent and utility model utilisation. The idea of this generous arrangement is to increase the awareness of IP in China and to encourage Chinese innovators to learn how to protect their IP.
11th Feb 2020
Registered Community designs (RCDs) protect the shape and appearance of new products across the whole of the EU. However, RCDs only came into effect on 1 April 2003, which means that the body of case law concerning aspects of RCDs such as individual character is still developing. Since national court decisions on RCDs are rare, decisions by the EUIPO’s Invalidity Division provide a valuable source of information on how the validity of an RCD is interpreted. This blog covers invalidity decisions issued by the EUIPO during the fourth quarter of 2019, from 1 October 2019 to 31 December 2019. Our previous blog covering the third quarter of 2019 can be found here.
29th Nov 2019
Registered Community designs (RCDs) and registered UK designs are used to protect the design of the shape and appearance of the whole or part of a new product. This article looks at a practical, real-life example of how a company has used registered designs to protect the design of a new product.
30th Oct 2019
This is the first blog in a new regular series summarising some of the new case law concerning registered Community designs. This blog covers invalidity decisions issued by the EUIPO during the third quarter of 2019, from 1 July 2019 to 30 September 2019.
9th Oct 2019
In order for a Registered Community Design to be valid, the design shown in the RCD must be novel over all prior designs that have been made available to the public before the earliest filing date of the RCD application. However, there are cases where it can be commercially advantageous to invalidate a Registered Community Deign – so how can you go about this?