Trade Mark Law - Where the proprietor of a mark affixes that mark to items that it gives, free of charge, to purchasers of its goods, it does not make genuine use of that mark in respect of the class covering those items.

Publication - Privacy - The key issue in the present case is not the nature, harmless or otherwise, of the applicants' son's representation on the offending photographs, but the fact that the photographer kept them without the applicants' consent. The baby's image was thus retained in the hands of the photographer in...

Trade Mark Law - Lego trademark invalid: Essential characteristics of shape consisting exclusively of intended technical result, even if that result can be achieved by other shapes using the same or another technical solution. The essential characteristics of a shape must be determined objectively, on the basis of its...

Litigation - Lack of urgency interim measures: the application for interim measures must be dismissed on the ground of lack of urgency, without there being any need to examine whether the other conditions for ordering the suspension of operation sought, in particular the existence of a prima facie case, are satisfied

Contactinformation serviceprovider: a service provider is required to supply, before the conclusion of a contract, in addition to its electronic mail address, other information, which does not necessarily have to be a telephone number.

Patent Law - Purposive construction and article 69 EPC: Person skilled in the art reads [the claim or] the specification on the assumption that its purpose is to both to describe and to demarcate an invention. Doctrine of equivalents and article 69 EPC: Article 69 firmly shuts the door on any doctrine which extends...

Copyright - Free Movement of Goods - The enforcement of copyrights against the importation and marketing of gramophone records in the United Kingdom lawfully manufactured and placed on the market in the Portuguese Republic by licensees does not constitute a restriction on trade: does not constitute a means of arbitrary...

Patent Law - Methods of business research are excluded "as such" from patentability under Article 52(2)(c) and (3) EPC: Gathering and evaluating data as part of a busi-ness research method do not convey technical character to the business research method if such steps do not contribute to the technical solution of a...

Patent Law - A computer system including a memory (clipboard) is a technical means, and consequently the claimed method has technical character in accordance with established case law. Moreover, the Board would like to emphasise that a method implemented in a computer system represents a sequence of steps actually...

Trade Mark Law - Shape of a white transparent bottle possesses required distinctiveness to be registered as a three-dimensional mark

Database rights - It refers to any collection of works, data or other materials, separable from one another without the value of their contents being affected.

Trade Mark Law -  Court of First Instance correctly found that the BSS mark had become customary for the target public concerned and the use made of the mark had not been able to confer distinctive character on it

Freedom of expression - Inability to find employment because of the KGB Act not a restriction on ability to express views, because searched positions do not involve the imparting of ideas and information does not contitute a breach of Article 10 ECHR

Patent Law - In general, a method involving technical means is an invention. Subject matter consisting of technical and non-technical features can be an invention. In the Board's view, activities falling within the notion of a non-invention "as such" would typically represent purely abstract concepts devoid of any...

Trade Mark Law - Fact that earlier mark is only of weak distinctive character is not of overriding importance

Trademark law. - Article 7(1)(c) of the EU Trade Mark Regulation pursues an aim in the general interest that signs or indications which may serve to designate the characteristics of the goods or services may be freely used by all

Publication - Violation of Article 10 ECHR: Austrian courts overstepped their margin of appreciation

Trade Mark Law - The Board of Appeal erred in finding that the three-dimensional mark applied for is devoid of any distinctive character

Patent Law - Invention can only be made up of those features which contribute to technical character:  where a feature cannot be considered as contributing to the solution of any technical problem by providing a technical effect it has no significance for the purpose of assessing inventive step.Formulation technical...

Patent Law - Method for doing business as such: If the method is technical or, in other words, has a technical character, it still may be a method for doing business, but not a method for doing business as such.

Apparatus claim:  a computer system suitably programmed for use in a particular field, even if that is...