Insights
COVFEFE anyone?
By AWA | Posted on June 5, 2017
On 30 May, Donald Trump tweeted “Despite the constant negative press covfefe” and he started a world-wide buzz of speculations of the meaning of this slightly confusing word. Soon thereafter, Per Holknekt, the founder of the Swedish clothing company Odd Molly International AB, claimed to have the right to the trademark COVFEFE and explained his...
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Tags: COVFEFE, Donald Trump, trademarks
Sustainable development goals set the need for disruptive innovation and new leadership
By AWA | Posted on June 1, 2017
On 25 September 2015, countries adopted 17 sustainable development goals to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all in a historic UN summit. The goals are followed by an extensive list comprising of 169 targets to ensure the three core elements of sustainable development, i.e. economic growth, social inclusion and environmental protection, are harmonised. These goals...
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Tags: SDG, UN, United Nations
Conditions for bad faith in Sweden
By Niclas Dahlberg | Posted on May 10, 2017
The Patent and Market Court has recently in a decision (case PMÄ 15622-16), dated 25 April 2017, ruled that knowledge of someone else’s prior use of a trademark alone does not suffice to constitute bad faith. A Swedish company applied for registration of the trademark “Lyckliga Gatan” for clothes in Class 25. The Opponent filed...
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Tags: Bad faith, sweden, trademarks
Can “Real World” IP Tools Effectively Protect Virtual Reality?
By Joacim Lydén | Posted on May 8, 2017
Before long, billions of people around the world were working and playing in the OASIS every day. Some of them met, fell in love, and got married without ever setting foot on the same continent. The lines of distinction between a person’s real identity and that of their avatar began to blur. It was the...
Tags: 2D, 3D, Intellectual Property, IP, Virtual Reality, VR
Will .Africa be the one digital space for the African continent?
By Marcus Glaad | Posted on April 13, 2017
With the goal of establishing ’Africa in One Space‘, dotAfrica aims to provide a secure and world-class technical infrastructure to leverage the continent’s socio-economic capacity and potential. “The dotAfrica registry will place special emphasis on securing the rights of intellectual property owners, Internet users and the broader African community.” Background The .africa TLD has a...
Tags: africa, domain, domain name, dotafrica
Damage liability for preliminary injunction
By AWA | Posted on April 4, 2017
New Scandinavian case law clarifies a patent or trademark owner’s liability to pay damages for a wrongfully issued preliminary injunction. Background In Intellectual Property (IP) litigation in the Scandinavian countries, IP owners often try to get so-called ‘preliminary injunctions’ issued against the accused infringer. If granted, a preliminary injunction will allow the IP owner to...
Tags: Denmark, IP, patents, preliminary injunction, sweden, trademarks
Can you not patent a beer?
By Anders Heebøll-Nielsen | Posted on March 31, 2017
On 15 March 2017, the coalition No Patents on Seeds issued a press release to stop patents on beer, which was cited by inter alia the journal Ingeniøren of the Danish Society of Engineers. But can you really not patent a beer? I will summarise the situation. In 1998, the EU Directive 98/44/EC on the...
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BEPS from an IP perspective, Part 2
By AWA | Posted on March 27, 2017
Part 2: Transfer Pricing documentation requirements From 1 April 2017, BEPS action 13 guidelines on transfer pricing (TP) documentation will be effective in Sweden. Action 13 is an effort to make MNEs global financial situation more transparent. It is a three-tiered based approach including a master file, local files and country by country reporting (CbCR)....
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The EPO improving timeliness and granting patents at a record level
By AWA | Posted on March 20, 2017
After having a brief look at the statistics in the EPO (European Patent Office) annual report of 2016, which was recently published, it was clear that something had happened. During 2016, almost 96 000 patents were granted, which is a massive 40% increase in comparison to 2015. The number of patent applications filed in 2016 were...
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Tags: EPO, European patents
Final meeting of the Preparatory Committee signals pending start of UPC
By AWA | Posted on March 17, 2017
On 15 March 2017, the UPC Preparatory Committee hopefully met for the last time before the start of the provisional application phase. During the meeting, the Committee agreed on a final suite of legal, HR and financial documents as well as coming to a decision regarding the state of readiness for a provisional application. The...
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Tags: UPC
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