AWA
PCT to the rescue
By AWA | Posted on April 22, 2014
According to Wikipedia, “time to market is the length of time it takes from a product being conceived until its being available for sale“. However, the success of the product can often not be determined until the product has been on the market for a period of time. For some products, the success is immediate,...
Tags: EQE, European Patent Attorney
The (trade) secret of success
By AWA | Posted on April 8, 2014
We have all heard of success stories such as the Coca-Cola recipe and the Google search algorithm. Many companies value their trade secrets and consider them important for competitiveness and innovative performance. Although the general understanding is that trade secrets are good for business, there seem to be many incorrect assumptions about their legal protection....
Tags: EU, trade secrets
Fighting the bad guys with customs surveillance
By AWA | Posted on April 3, 2014
Most classic feel-good Hollywood movies reach a point when things look most bleak, and you almost doubt whether the hero will defy all odds and beat the villain. The eternal fight against counterfeiting is starting to reach a similar point. As IP specialists and larger companies are aware, one of the most effective remedies in...
Changed conditions regarding the possibility to register “geographical” trademarks
By AWA | Posted on February 6, 2014
As you might have heard before, a fundamental requirement for registering a trademark is that the trademark is distinctive, meaning that it must have the ability of distinguishing the goods or services provided from the goods and services of others. The Swedish Trademark Act holds that a trademark might lack distinctiveness inter alia when it...
Wider scope of protection for Swedish patents?
By AWA | Posted on November 20, 2013
Last week the Swedish government referred an amendment of the Swedish patent law to the Council on Legislation for reconsideration. According to the suggested amendment, patent applications filed in English need not be translated into Swedish. Instead, they can be granted in English. For applicants filing a Swedish patent application in English and wishing to...
Tags: EPO, Europe, patent application, sweden
The on-sale bar under the AIA
By AWA | Posted on October 23, 2013
Do non-public sales in Europe destroy novelty in the U.S.? Among the many news that applicants have had to digest in the America Invents Act, the revised on-sale bar may be one of the more intriguing. Before the law reform, grant of a patent was excluded whenever the invention was … in public use or...
Reform and rebellion in the trademark world
By AWA | Posted on August 12, 2013
This spring, the EU commission published their proposals for a reform of the Council Regulation (EC) No 207/2009 on the Community trade mark and the Directive 2008/95/EC to approximate the laws of the Member States relating to trade marks. An earlier version of the proposals had been leaked ahead of time, but by the time...
Tags: PTO
Birthday musings: Designing design strategy
By AWA | Posted on July 16, 2013
Earlier this year, the community design celebrated its tenth birthday. On 1 April 2003, the first community design was registered in Alicante and since then more than 690,000 designs have been registered. The yearly filings increase by a rate of no less than 78,000 a year. I think it’s fair to say that the community...
The dark side of the Internet
By AWA | Posted on July 12, 2013
On Friday the 14 June 2013 we participated in a seminar arranged by the Danish PTO in corporation with the Confederation of Danish Industry on the topic “IP infringements online”. The seminar aimed at discussing how to protect against infringement of one’s IP-rights on the Internet, and moreover a discussion of counterfeit, its extent and...
Beer lovers sue for trademark dilution
By AWA | Posted on April 26, 2013
Trademarks are, among other things, a guarantee for a certain level of quality. If the quality slips, the consumers may go for a different, competing product. But sometimes consumers seem to stick to their favorites. An unusual lawsuit has been filed in the US, where consumers have filed a $5 million class action against Anheuser-Busch. The...
Tags: Anheuser-Busch
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