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...

Ars Technica: "Is the term "google" too generic and therefore unworthy of its trademark protection? That's the question before the US Supreme Court. Words like teleprompter, thermos, hoover, aspirin, and videotape were once trademarked. They lost the status after their names became too generic and fell victim to what...

Engadget: "The Nintendo Switch certainly isn't the first gaming tablet, but is it directly riffing on others' ideas? Gamevice thinks so. The accessory maker is suing Nintendo for allegedly violating a patent for concepts used in the Wikipad, its gaming-oriented Android slate, as well as its namesake add-on controllers...

The Verge: "Disney will end its distribution deal with Netflix and launch its own streaming service, the company announced today. It intends to launch the service in 2019. Netflix won’t lose its Disney movies right away. Disney says it plans to cut Netflix off starting with the studio’s 2019 films, and Netflix says it...

(Courtesy of Ranee van der Straaten, BANNING and Monique Hennekens) Trade mark law - Judgement of the German Federal Patent Court (Bundespatentgericht) of 28 June 2017 in the case of Deutsche SiSi-Werke Betriebs GmbH v. Riha WeserGold Getränke GmbH & Co, concerning the Capri-Sun stand-up pouch (SiSi).

Trade Mark Law - The view of the General Court regarding the distinctiveness of an earlier mark is based on an error in law: it is clear from the brochures provided by Michelin that the stylised letter ‘x’ is used, in isolation or in combination with other letters, to designate a technical characteristic of Michelin...

Trade Mark Law - General Court made no error in law by holding that the Board of Appeal was fully entitled - after a global assessment - to conclude that there was no likelihood of confusion between the marks at issue. Other grounds of appeal are manifestly unfounded because they concern factual assessments of the...

Reuters: “A U.S. judge on Monday ordered Apple Inc to pay $506 million for infringing on a patent owned by the University of Wisconsin-Madison's patent licensing arm, more than doubling the damages initially imposed on Apple by a jury. […]

WARF sued Apple in 2014, alleging processors found in some versions of...

IP contract law - Zoom.in failed to sufficiently demonstrate that meetings its obligations towards MN, would lead to the demise of the company:  It can by no means be concluded that an agreement with YouTube, with the retention of the identity and independence of MN, could not be in agreement with the new YouTube...

Trade Mark Law - The fact that EU trade mark and national mark peacefully coexist in part of the European Union does not allow the conclusion that in another part of the European Union, where peaceful coexistence between that EU trade mark and the sign identical to that national mark is absent, there is no likelihood...

Trade Mark Law - Litigation - The A-G concludes that an action (seeking an order requiring the person formally registered as proprietor of a Benelux mark to make a declaration to the competent authority that he has no entitlement to the mark and that he waives registration as the proprietor of that mark) doesn’t fall...

Trade Mark Law - A trade mark such as LA MILLA DE ORO – which refers to a good or service with a high degree of value which is abundantly present in a single place – cannot constitute an indication of geographical origin. To indicate a geographical origin that sign must be accompanied by a name designating a...

In 2015, the so-called Tomato-II and Broccoli-II cases (G 2/12 and G 2/13) reached decisions from the Enlarged Board of Appeal. These decisions held that ‘plant products such as fruits, seeds and parts of plants are patentable even if they are obtained through essentially biological breeding methods involving crossing...

From the press release: "Munich, 29 June 2017 -- On a proposal of the European Patent Office its Administrative Council took a decision to amend the relevant Regulations in order to exclude from patentability plants and animals exclusively obtained by an essentially biological breeding process.

Trade mark law - Free speech - The disparagement clause violates the First Amendment’s Free Speech Clause: the disparagement clause reaches any trademark that disparages any person, group, or institution, goes much further than necessary and is far too broad. The commercial market is well stocked with merchandise that...