2001
Print this pageExhausion - consent must be so expressed that an intention to renounce those rights is unequivocally demonstrated. Such intention will normally be gathered from an express statement of consent.
IPPT20011025, ECJ, Toshiba v Katun
Indication in a catalogue of product numbers for spare parts and consumable items may constitute comparative advertising. Only unfair advantage of the reputation attached to the marks when the public might associate the reputation of that manufacturer's products with the products of the competing supplier.
IPPT20011009, ECJ, The Netherlands v Parliament & Council
Biotech-directive aims to prevent divergences of practice and case-law. Community competent to harmonise intellectual property law. Commercial exploitation of an invention is not con-trary to ordre public or morality because of a pro-hibition. Genetically modiefied plant variety not patentable, but inventions that concern a grouping wider than a single plant variety are patentable. Biotechnology Directive deprives Member States of option under TRIPS, but is compatible with TRIPs. Biotechnological invention versus discovery
IPPT20011004, ECJ, Merz & Krell (Bravo)
Article 3(1)(d) only precludes registration of trade marks that have become customary in the current language or in the bona fide and established practices of the trade. It is immaterial, when that provision is applied, whether the signs or indications in question are descriptive.
Descriptiveness must be determined in relation to each word separately and in relation to the whole. Any perceptible difference from the terms used in common parlance can confer distinctive character.
Where TRIPs became applicable in the Member State concerned at a time when the court of first instance has heard the case but not yet delivered its decision, Article 50 of that agreement is applicable to the extent that the infringement continues beyond the date on which TRIPs became applicable with regard to the Community and the Member States.
IPPT20010531, EBA-EPO, Same Invention
[G 2/98] Priority - same invention. The requirement for claiming priority of ”the same invention”, [...] is to be acknowledged only if the skilled person can derive the subject-matter of the claim directly and unambiguously, using common general knowledge, from the previous application as a whole
Products: ‘as they occur’ including any impurity. Number of market authorizations: irrelevant for establishing whether products are the same. Difference only in proportion of active chemical compound insufficient to qualify as different product
IPPT20010402, EBA-EPO, Nipon Carbide v Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing
[T 0315/97] Amended claim – In principle no worse situation opponent/appellant. In principle, an amended claim, which would put the opponent and sole appellant in a worse situation than if it had not appealed, must be rejected. However, an exception to this principle may be made in order to meet an objection put forward by the opponent/appellant or the Board during the ap-peal proceedings, in circumstances where the patent as maintained in amended form would otherwise have to be revoked as a direct consequence of an in-admissible amendment held allowable by the Opposition Division in its interlocutory decision.
