A joint seminar organized by the Irish Patents Office (IPO) and the Community Trade Mark Office (OHIM) took place on June 4th in Dublin and was attended by Cliff Kennedy, Norman MacLachlan, Robert Hayes, Peter MacLachlan and Jonathan White. There were presentations by, amongst others, the President of the OHIM, Mr António Campinos and Mr Dermot Doyle [...]
Norman MacLachlan is attending ECTA's 32nd Annual Conference in Bucharest, Romania which is being held on the 19th-22nd June – the first major intellectual property event to be organised in that city. For 18 years prior to his stepping down as Treasurer in 2006, Norman was Treasurer-General and a Member of the Management Committee of ECTA, the [...]
As those following the ongoing battle between the smartphone giants Apple and Samsung will know, US District Judge Lucy Koh last year asked Apple’s lawyers were they “smoking crack” because they expected her to go through 75 pages of objections to witnesses. In the UK, Judge Colin Birss said that Samsung’s tablets were “not cool enough” [...]
The European Patent Office (EPO) and the State Intellectual Property Office of the People’s Republic of China (SIPO) today signed a Memorandum of Understanding to enhance their cooperation in the area of patent classification. As of January 2014, SIPO will start classifying its newly published invention patent applications in some selected technical fields into the [...]
We are delighted to learn that we have been successful in assisting a Monaghan based fish and chip restaurant in defending an opposition at the Irish Patents Office by an international company against the local company's application to register a composite trade mark featuring the words The Monte Carlo and other graphic matter. The international opponents [...]
1. What are the most effective ways for the owner of an Irish Patent derived from a European Patent to enforce its rights in Ireland? Enforcement of a European patent in Ireland is available only by petition to the High Court in civil proceedings. Infringement proceedings are handled by the Chancery Division of the High [...]
It has been widely reported in the Irish media that the Trade Union Unite is launching a test case in an attempt to force the owners of the Trade Mark WATERFORD to have crystal glass sold under that trade mark made exclusively in Waterford. Some crystal items are still made in Waterford but the vast [...]
Bernadette Walsh and Peter MacLachlan attended the 135th INTA Meeting in Dallas, Texas from 4th-8th May 2013. Also at the Conference were IP experts from more than 140 countries with talks on a variety of trade mark related topics covering many geographic regions and industries. The keynote address was by Jerry Jones Owner, President and General [...]
A large number of patent applications are filed at the European Patent Office (EPO) for computer implemented inventions – a term defined by the EPO to be “an invention that works by using a computer, a computer network or other programmable apparatus and that to qualify [as a computer implemented invention], the invention also needs [...]
Once a Community Trade Mark (CTM) has been registered for an initial period of five years, the registration may be challenged on the ground that the trade mark has not been put to genuine use within the European Community during a continuous period of five years. In the event of such a challenge, the CTM [...]