China will strengthen punishment of intellectual property rights violations and provide equal protection to both Chinese and foreign companies, the head of the intellectual property rights office said on Tuesday.

Design Law - In order to ascertain whether the features of appearance of a product are solely dictated by its function, it must be established that the function is the only factor which dictated those characteristics: the existence of alternative designs isn’t decisive. In order to ascertain whether the product is...

Geographical Indications. Case C-44/17 The Scotch Whisky Association. Preliminary questions. Landgericht Hamburg (Germany). Opinion A-G Saugmandsgaard Øe

From the press release: "Advocate General Saugmandsgaard Øe issues his opinion on the interpretation of EU law provisions relating to geographical indications...

Privacy. Case C-18/18. Request for a preliminary ruling. Oberster Gerichtshof (Austria).

Unofficial translation: "Preliminary questions:

1. Does Article 15 (1) of Directive 2000/31 / EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 8 June 2000 on certain legal aspects of information society services, in...

Trade mark law. Case C-21/18 Textilis. Request for a preliminary ruling. Patent- och marknadsöverdomstolen (Sweden). 

Unofficial translation: "Preliminary questions: 

1. Must Article 4 of Regulation (EU) 2015/2424 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 December 2015 amending Regulation (EC) No...

Press release Council of the EU: "The Council today adopted a decision approving the conclusion of the Marrakesh Treaty to facilitate access to published works for persons who are blind, visually impaired, or otherwise print disabled. 

The Marrakesh Treaty establishes a set of international rules which ensure...

Deloitte press release: "As from today, DeloitteSmartReports.com is also offering patent benchmark reports. The reports are created by using artificial intelligence to analyze over 70 million patents filed by 268.000 businesses worldwide. Next-generation analytics allows us to benchmark your business against its...

Case C-371-18 Sky v Skykick. Request for preliminary ruling. England and Wales High Court (Chancery Division).

Trade Mark Law.  Sky is the registered proprietor of a number of EU trade marks “SKY”, among which two figurative marks. Sky contends that Skykick have infringed these EU trade marks. SkyKick denies...

Patent Law - SPC - Case C-681/16: Pfizer Ireland Pharmaceuticals v Orifarm, Opinion AG E. Tanchev

The plaintiff was the registered holder of an SPC protecting the protein Etanercept. Etanercept is an active substance of the drug Enbrel® that the plaintiff produces and markets in Germany. The German Patent and...

(Courtesy of Margot van Gerwen, Maarten Rijks and Eelco Bergsma, TaylorWessing and Jesse Hofhuis, Hofhuis Alkema Groen)

Trade mark law - Additional opinion following the reopened oral hearing in case Louboutin v van Haren. A reopening was called for after questions were raised by the Ninth Chamber about EU trade...

World Intellectual Property Review: 'Miami-based UnitedCorp has taken on photo-sharing platform Instagram in a patent infringement lawsuit filed at the Federal Court of Canada. According to an announcement released on Friday, February 2, UnitedCorp owns Canadian patent number 2,887,596, called “User content sharing...

Financial Times: ”The high-profile lawsuit between Uber and autonomous driving rival Waymo will go to trial this week following a nearly year-long battle of theft allegations involving encrypted texts, untraceable phones and secret meetings.[…]

Waymo has accused Uber of stealing eight trade secrets that relate...

Trade Mark Law - Litigation - The General Court correctly held that, in the context of the invalidity proceedings based on the absolute ground for refusal, the EUIPO Board of Appeal should not, in all circumstances, rule that the that evidence submitted for the first time before the Board of Appeal must be regarded as...

Advertising Law. ECHR, 30 January 2018, appl.  No. 69317/14, SEKMADIENIS LTD. v. LITHUANIA. Sekmadienis Ltd. ran an advertisement campaign for clothing with models and captions referring  to Jesus and Maria. The company was given a fine for offending against public morals. Seksmadienis Ltd. lodged an application with...

Trade Mark Law - Board of Appeal EUIPO, 21 december 2017, Ruby Decor v Essege. The appeal is dismissed. The Board of Appeal finds that the earlier mark has been put to genuine use. The use has been proved with a large quantity of invoices of which a significant number relate to the Benelux and with advertising...

Trade Mark Law - Case C-690/17. Request for a preliminary ruling. Oberlandesgericht Dusseldorf (Germany). 

Copyright Law - Case C-683/17. Request for a preliminary ruling. Supremo Tribunal de Justiça (Portugal).

Competition Law - Pharmaceutical Law - National competition authorities are allowed to consider medicinal products of which the MA lays outside the treatment of the diseases at issue, but can be used for this and therefore can be regarded as substitutable with other medicinal products as products in the same market. It...

Privacy - Private International Law - A private Facebook account user is a consumer within the meaning of Article 15 of Brussels I Regulation, even when his activities entail publishing books, lecturing, operating websites, fundraising and being assigned the claims of numerous consumers for the purpose of their...

World Intellectual Property Review: "Hard Candy Cosmetics has withdrawn its trademark application for ‘#metoo’ following widespread public criticism.The US beauty brand, which sells make-up products through Walmart, abandoned its application to the US Patent and Trademark Office on Thursday, January 18.