Intellectual Property UK

  • August 15, 2024

    BMW, Rolls-Royce Hit Back At Bespoke Car Accessories Seller

    BMW urged a London judge to refuse an accessories maker a declaration that it wasn't infringing the Rolls-Royce owner's trademarks despite arguing it was only using them for reference to sell matching wheels.

  • August 15, 2024

    Samsung Takes Jab At Bayer, Regeneron Eye Patents

    Samsung's pharmaceutical unit wants a London judge to nix two patents owned by its rivals that help treat eye disorders, arguing that they are both invalid as it prepares to launch a biosimilar.

  • August 15, 2024

    Glock Shoots Down 'Identical' Italian Air Gun Design

    Glock has convinced the European Union's intellectual property authority to scrap an Italian manufacturer's protected air gun design, arguing that it is a direct copy of the Austrian gunmaker's renowned pistol design.

  • August 15, 2024

    Nokia, Verifone End Patent Litigation With Licensing Deal

    Nokia has inked a global patent licensing deal with payments tech company Verifone, which ends infringement disputes between the two in Europe, India and Germany.

  • August 15, 2024

    Vespa Scooter Maker Loses Bid To Block 'VSPR' TM

    The maker of Vespa scooters has lost its fight to block a Chinese company from registering a VSPR trademark for motorcycles and parts in the U.K. after the Intellectual Property Office concluded that consumers would not confuse the two brands.

  • August 14, 2024

    Device-Maker Loses Patent For Artery Repair Treatment

    European officials have twice rejected a medical device maker's bid to patent a treatment technique for blood vessel damage, ruling that the technique's key features were already known from previous inventions and patent applications.

  • August 14, 2024

    'Tot Crew' Bag TM Won't Leave Buyers Muddled, IPO Finds

    A bag retailer has fended off a rival's challenge to its "Tot Crew" trademark after persuading the U.K. officials that consumers would not mix up the "Tot Crew" branding with its competitor's "Totto" trademark.

  • August 14, 2024

    Skullcandy's 'Indy' TM Too Close To Rival's Sign, UKIPO Finds

    Skullcandy Inc. has lost its "Indy" headphones trademark after a rival electronics business, Lindy Electronics Ltd., convinced the U.K. Intellectual Property Office that consumers could confuse the sign with its earlier "Lindy" mark.

  • August 14, 2024

    Borealis Loses Plastic Patent Fight With TotalEnergies Unit

    Plastics maker Borealis has lost its fight with a subsidiary of TotalEnergies over a patent for a plastic for vehicle interiors, as a European patent authority appeals board concluded that the material of the Austrian company was not inventive enough for patent protection.

  • August 14, 2024

    Saint-Gobain Suffers Blow In Bid To Nix Rival's Insulation IP

    An insulation company can fight to rescue its mineral wool patent after proving that officials wrongly declared its amendments unlawful, an appeals panel held in a ruling published Wednesday amid a feud with Saint-Gobain and another rival.

  • August 13, 2024

    Speed Record Breaker's Family Blocks 'Bluebird' TM Bid

    The nephew of British speed record breaker Donald Campbell has blocked the restorer of Campbell's famous Bluebird boat from registering a trademark incorporating its name, proving that his company applied in bad faith amid a feud over the boat's ownership.

  • August 13, 2024

    De'Longhi Can't Nix SEB's Iron Patent At German Court

    SEB has fought off rival appliances producer De'Longhi's bid to revoke its patent over a clothes iron, convincing a German court that its emptying mechanism is inventive over earlier devices.

  • August 20, 2024

    German Patent Boutique Hires HGF Team For Munich Launch

    German patent law firm WSL Patentanwälte Partnerschaft mbB has hired a team of specialists from Harrison Goddard Foote for a new office it has launched in Munich as it looks to attract more international clients and capitalize on the launch of the European Union's Unified Patent Court.

  • August 13, 2024

    Dutch Court Says Bike Biz Breached Rival's IP With Rebrand

    A court in the Netherlands has ruled that an e-bike shop infringed the copyright owned by a rival manufacturer by selling the competitor's models under a different name.

  • August 13, 2024

    AI Act's IP Scraping Exemptions Leave Lawyers In The Dark

    The European Union's first-of-its-kind artificial intelligence legislation enshrines text- and data-mining protections for rights holders who want to ensure their work is not used to train AI models — but experts say it is still unclear how the process will work.

  • August 13, 2024

    Coat Hook Design Evades Getting Hung By UKIPO

    Vault Mart has won its bid to register a coat hook design after British officials held that buyers would believe it looked different from other products on the shelf.

  • August 12, 2024

    EPO Folds Papermaker's Challenge To Finnish Rival's Patent

    An appellate body at the European Union's patent authority has told a paper manufacturer that it must refine the details of its papermaking patent — but threw out an Italian rival's claim that other paper manufacturers use essentially the same method.

  • August 12, 2024

    Ex-MedTech Chemist Must Be Specific In Bid For IP Profits Cut

    A chemist who worked at a medical device company must be more specific about his claimed inventions and their related patents as he looks to win a share of the cash the products have generated, a London court ruled Monday.

  • August 12, 2024

    Celebrity Photo Companies Hit Ye With $1.5M Copyright Suit

    Ye, the musical artist formerly known as Kanye West, was hit with a $1.5 million copyright infringement suit by two celebrity photography companies that claimed he posted at least 10 of their photos to his Instagram account and his Yeezy website without permission.

  • August 12, 2024

    Westfield Sues Clearpay Over Brand Deal Breach

    Shopping giant Westfield has sued Clearpay Finance Ltd. for more than £665,000 ($848,722), claiming the payment processing provider wrongly terminated two "buy now, pay later" partnerships with its London shopping centers.

  • August 12, 2024

    O2 Convinces EUIPO 'Pale Blue' Trademark Risks Confusion

    O2 blocked a software engineering company from registering the trademark "Pale Blue" when European Union officials said it was possible the mark would be confused as a subbrand of the telecoms company.

  • August 12, 2024

    Otis Elevator Rescues Patent Over Safety System At EPO

    Elevator manufacturing giant Otis has rescued its patent over a safety system after officials held in a decision published Monday that its tweaked tensioning mechanism added an inventive step to the design.

  • August 09, 2024

    10x Genomics Can't Get NanoString Gene Tech Ban Reinstated

    The Unified Patent Court has refused 10x Genomics' bid to reopen proceedings against NanoString Technologies, after a previous judge overturned a preliminary injunction ordering the rival to stop infringing a patent for gene-analyzing technology developed by Harvard and 10x.

  • August 09, 2024

    Boiler Rivals' Challenge To Burner Patent Goes Up In Flames

    An appellate panel at the European Union's patent authority has quashed a series of objections to a patent for boiler burners, after a boiler supplier convinced the board that its design was sufficiently different from other burner designs.

  • August 09, 2024

    Superdry TM Too Indistinct To Register, Appeals Board Says

    A Superdry unit's attempt to register a trademark over its popular brand name failed this week, with European officials ruling that the mark just describes the waterproof qualities of the clothing and toiletry goods it covered and isn't distinct enough.

Expert Analysis

  • Using Patents To Curtail Climate Change: A Proposal

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    Last fall, 74 countries and more than 1,000 businesses signed a declaration calling on all nations to price carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, yet the prospects of meaningful government action are dim. We see a possible solution in our patent system — impose a flexible license fee tied to greenhouse gas emissions, say attorneys with Klarquist Sparkman LLP, Green Patent Law, Robins Kaplan LLP, Burns & Levinson LLP and Susman Godfrey LLP.

  • 22 Ways Congress Can Save Section 101

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    As delightful as the post-Alice patent-invalidating trend may be to patent defendants, it has created enormous consequences for companies that rely on patent protection to protect crucial technology assets, including the loss of business contracts, disrupted partnerships and increased difficulty in obtaining venture funding. It is time for Congress to act, says Robert Sachs of Fenwick & West LLP.

  • Top 5 IPR Discovery Tips For Patent Owners

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    Recent Patent Trial and Appeal Board orders shed some light on how parties can use the inter partes review discovery periods to their best advantage, says Carly Levin of Venable LLP.

  • What To Know About Extending Patent Term In Southeast Asia

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    For pharmaceutical products, the most general form of extended patent protection available in Southeast Asia is currently data exclusivity, says James Kinnaird of Marks & Clerk.

  • New Guidelines Suggest A Friendlier European Patent Office

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    While many of the changes in the latest European Patent Office guidelines reflect the current practice of the EPO’s boards of appeal, they also suggest that the first-instance departments of the EPO may be moving toward a less rigid and formalistic approach to some issues, say Philip Cupitt and Hazel Ford of Finnegan Henderson Farabow Garrett & Dunner LLP.

  • Why Canada's Patent Prosecution Highway Is A Huge Success

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    Canada's Patent Prosecution Highway program has positioned the country as a highly cost-effective jurisdiction in which to procure patent protection with exceptional speed and efficacy, says Elliott Simcoe of Smart & Biggar.

  • An Update On The Status Of EU Unitary Patents

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    There no longer appears to be much doubt that the EU Unified Patent Court Agreement will receive the minimum required ratification, however the schedule is stretching out. While implementation was initially expected in 2015, the Unified Patent Court and unitary patent now appear unlikely to be available before spring 2016, say Frank Peterreins and John Pegram of Fish & Richardson PC.

  • The Most Important New Changes To Russian IP Law

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    New amendments bring Russian intellectual property law more into line with practices in other jurisdictions and will have a positive effect on the protection and enforcement of IP rights in Russia, says Irina Stepanova of Baker Botts LLP.

  • Good News For Originators Of Antibody Products

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    In Eli Lilly and Company v. Human Genome Sciences Inc., the English Patents Court recently gave its interpretation of the EU Court of Justice’s most recent decision on supplementary protection certificates. In doing so, the court confirmed that SPCs are available based on patents with claims that define the product in functional terms only, say Andrew Sharples and Emma Muncey of EIP.

  • Tips On Disclosing Embodiments In Patent Apps Overseas

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    Getting too used to permissive rules for claim amendment support before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office can catch up with American patent attorneys as they prosecute and enforce intellectual property rights abroad, says Stephen Keefe, an attorney with Rabin & Berdo PC and former patent examiner at the USPTO.

  • How To Protect In-House Legal Privilege Internationally

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    Many companies regularly communicate with in-house legal advisers all over the globe. Are these communications privileged? By answering five questions, companies and attorneys can perform a high-level, initial assessment of legal privilege protection in a multijurisdictional context, says Martje Verhoeven-de Vries Lentsch of De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek and Haynes and Boone LLP.

  • Inter Partes Review's Day Has Come For Pharma IP Cases

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    Gnosis SpA v. South Alabama Medical Science Foundation and Gnosis SpA v. Merck & Cie, among other cases, represent the tipping point for the inter partes review process, making it the default, go-to option for pharmaceutical-related patent cases, says Joseph Cwik of Husch Blackwell LLP.

  • Misconceptions About The European Unitary Patent

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    Some believe the EU's proposed unitary patent system will make obtaining European protection cheaper, but the cost of obtaining and maintaining patent protection in Europe will be higher under the unitary patent system for most users, say Ilya Kazi and Caroline Warren of Mathys & Squire LLP.

  • A Framework For Drafting Global Patent Applications

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    Putting market strength and patent strength on a sliding scale, and using strength in one area to prop up weakness in the other area, the two criteria can form a framework to help optimize globally oriented patent drafting, says Stephen Keefe of Rabin & Berdo PC.

  • What To Expect From Growing AIA Patent Challenges

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    With over 1,000 inter partes reviews and covered business method reviews already filed and post-grant review-eligible patents beginning to issue, can we expect similar growth of PGR filings? One way to anticipate what to expect is by looking to European Patent Office opposition practice, says John Stephens of Sedgwick LLP.

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