Press release: Mitsui & Co Ltd. (‘’Mitsui’’) and European intellectual property (IP) group Novagraaf BV have established a partnership to offer greater choice to Japanese customers. The agreement, which includes an investment by Mitsui in Novagraaf, will support Novagraaf’s strategy to transform the way IP owners in...

Private International Law - Trade Mark Law - Article 22(4) of Council Regulation (EC) regarding proceedings concerned with the registration or validity of an intellectual property right is not applicable to disputes about whether a person is entitled to be registered as a proprieter of a trade mark

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Trade mark law - Litigation - Article 99 (1) of Regulation No 207/2009 must be interpreted as meaning that an action for trademark infringement may not be dismissed on the basis of an absolute ground for invalidity, without that counterclaim for a declaration of invalidity being upheld. When the decision of the...

Private International Law - A legal person claiming that its personality rights have been infringed by the online publication of incorrect information and failure to remove comments can bring an action for rectification of that information, removal of those comments and compensation of all the damage sustained before...

On the 18th of october the Bundesgerichtshof annulled two Bundespatentgericht rulings on the eligibility for trademark protection. The Bundespatentgericht decided on the 27th of december 2016 that a three dimensional shape of a tablet with rounded corners was not eligible for protection as a trademark, because the...

Marques: "In yesterday's decision, the German Federal Court of Justice (Bundesgerichtshof) annulled two rulings of the German Federal Patent Court (BPatG) that held both three-dimensional signs depicted below not to be eligible for protection as trade marks. […

Trade Mark Law - Judgments CIPA v Registrar (IPPT20120619) and Praktiker Bau v Deutsche Patent und Markenamt (IPPT20050707) do not relate to earlier trade marks registered before the date of those judgments. Use of only the figurative element of a composite mark is "genuine use" if the distinctive character of the mark...

Trade Mark Law - Reopening of the oral part of the ‘sole mark’-procedure: the procedure is reassigned to the Grand Chamber from the Court after this procedure raised questions of principle involving Union law on trade marks in the Ninth Chamber.

IPPT20171012, CJEU, Louboutin v Van Haren

C-163/16 - ECLI...

Trade Mark Law - A distinction should be made between the assessment of the conceptual differences between signs at issue and the overall assessment of their similarities, which form two distinct stages in the analysis of the overall likelihood of confusion, the first being a prerequisite for the second.

Copyright - Case C-265/16: VCAST v RTI. Opinion AG Szpunar. Opinion about whether reproduction in the cloud is still made ‘by’ the beneficiary of the private copying exception, as required by the legislation. VCAST provides its users with a cloud recording system for free-to-air terrestrial programmes broadcast by...

Private International Law - Design Law - The Community design court can, in cases where the jurisdiction towards one defendant is based on Article 82(1) Community Designs Regulation (CDR) and jurisdiction towards a second defendant established in another Member State is based on Article 6(1) Brussel 1 Regulation and...

Trade Mark Law - Essential function of an EU collective mark: distinguishing the goods or services of the members of the association which is the proprietor of the trademark from those of other undertakings, and not to distinguish those goods according tot heir geographical origin. Where signs are, on the one hand...

World Trademark Review, August/September 2017, issue 68, p. 93-95, Ranee van der Straaten (Banning):
“This article first appeared in World Trademark Review issue 68, published by Globe Business Media Group – IP Division. To view the issue in full, please go to www.WorldTrademarkReview.com.”

“Your personal name has...

World Trademark Review, December 2016/January 2017, issue 64, p. 22-23, Ranee van der Straaten (Banning):
“This article first appeared in World Trademark Review issue 64, published by Globe Business Media Group – IP Division. To view the issue in full, please go to www.WorldTrademarkReview.com.”

“Across Europe...

IP-PorTal is a media partner of the IP World Summit 2017 which will take place in Amsterdam from 25 - 27 September. The Summit is a “one-stop shop for IP leaders offering a mix of thought provoking and practical sessions now covering a range of approaches to IP protection and monetisation, including patents, trade...

Copyright - Case C-299/17, VG Media. Request for a preliminary ruling. Landgericht Berlin - Germany. Applicant (VG Media) is a company which exercises the rights of §87f of the German Copyright Law of holders of related rights in digital publishing against users. On 01.08.2013 the so-called related right for newspaper...

Patent Law - Case C-443/17 Abraxis Bioscience. Request for a preliminary ruling. High Court of Justice UK.Applicant (Abraxis Bioscience) has filed an application for a supplementary protection certificate (SPC) with the Intellectual Property Office of the United Kingdom (UK IPO) . Defendant (Comptroller-General, head...

Patent Law - Case C-423/17 Warner-Lambert Company. Request for a preliminary ruling. Court of Appeal The Hague. Request for a preliminary ruling: 1. Must Article 11 of Directive 2001/83 or any other provision of Union law be interpreted as meaning that a notice by which the applicant or holder of a marketing...

Copyright - Case C-298/17 France Télévisions. Request for a preliminary ruling. Conseil d'État (Frankrijk). The applicant asks the referring court for the annulment of a decision of 27/05/2015 by the FRA Broadcasting Service (CSA, defendant) by which the applicant has been instructed to allow the company Playmédia (co...