The UK Intellectual Property Office (IPO) has settled an action for passing off against two companies alleged to have issued official looking letters offering to renew patent and trade mark registrations for a fee significantly higher than the fee charged by the IPO. The two companies, Patent and Trade Mark Office and Patent and Trade [...]
A long running dispute in Ireland concerning ownership of the MARIE CLAIRE trade mark in respect of clothing has finally been resolved. In a judgement delivered on July 21 2014, Mr. Justice Barrett of the Irish Commercial Court refused an application by Marie Claire Netherlands B.V(MCN) for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court his [...]
The Office for the Harmonization in the Internal Market (the OHIM) will not refuse an application to register a trade mark even if the same trade mark is already registered, unless the owner of the earlier registration successfully opposes the application. Largely as a result of the Community Regulation establishing the European Community system, a [...]
Following up on our post in June this year on the CJEU decision (Karen Millen Fashions Ltd v Dunnes Stores, Dunnes Stores (Limerick) Ltd) in relation to how the so-called “individual character” of a design is to be assessed, the legal skirmish between the parties is now over after almost six years. The Supreme Court of Ireland [...]
The 89th Conference of the Pharmaceutical Trade Marks Group is being held this year in Chicago from 8th – 11th OCTOBER 2014. The theme of the Conference is THE MULTI-FACETED PERSONALITY OF A PHARMACEUTICAL TRADE MARK. Bernadette Walsh from our office will be attending this Conference.
Isabel Meenan from our Belfast office will be attending the CIPA Congress London from 2nd to 3rd October 2014. Now in its 19th year, the CIPA Congress combined with the IPAG Conference is the UK’s largest patent event. This year's Congress is called "The Lifecycle of Intellectual Property - Intellectual Property from Cradle to Grave".
Denis McCarthy will be attending the 44th AIPPI Congress in Toronto from September 14 to September 17. AIPPI is the International Association for the Protection of Intellectual Property. About 2500 attendees from around the world are expected to join in this Congress.
The Intellectual Property (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2014 and the Legislative Reform (Patents) Order 2014 have each now been published and will affect the scope of patent infringement in Ireland and the United Kingdom, respectively. The research exemption in the legislation is to be enhanced, benefitting companies engaged in the pharmaceutical sector. The Irish Association of [...]
In our news post around this time last year here we reported that the Irish Government was to hold a Constitutional Referendum with the goal of amending the Constitution to enable a new Court of Appeal interposed between the High Court and the Supreme Court to be established. The referendum succeeded in October 2013 with [...]
Flexibility in prosecuting certain European patent applications is currently restricted by the inability to obtain a search report for claims which the EPO considers to relate to more than one invention. In such cases, the EPO searches the invention first presented in the claims and raises a lack of unity objection for all other claims. [...]