AWA Point
Trademark Infringements in Social Networks
By AWA | Posted on August 18, 2011
Trademark Infringements in Social Networks Last year, in 2010, Facebook passed 500 million users. That’s more than the population of USA, Canada and Mexico put together. It is safe to say that Facebook and other social networks are very powerful and important tools of communication in many different aspects, affecting most things from your personal...
Tags: Infringement, Internet, Media, Social Networks, Trademark
Supplementary protection for combination products heading for setback at the CJ of the EU
By Niklas Mattsson | Posted on July 14, 2011
Supplementary protection for combination products heading for setback at the Court of Justice of the EU On 13 July 2011, the opinion of the Advocate General (AG) was released in the consolidated cases C-322/10 and C-422/10, “Medeva” and “Georgetown” respectively, concerning supplementary protection certificates (SPCs) for combination vaccines. In her opinion, the AG recommends the...
Filed under: Insights
Tags: CJ, EU, Medication, SPC
Software inventions: The BGH confirms examination approach
By AWA | Posted on June 22, 2011
By its judgment in X ZR 121/09 (Webseitenanzeige), the German Federal Court of Justice (BGH) recently nullified one of Siemens AG’s German patents (English-language version) for lacking technical character. The judgment can be said to belong to the same lineage as Xa ZB 20/08 (Dynamische Dokumentengenerierung), which was reported in AWA IP Review 2/2010, and...
Counterfeit pharmaceuticals case settled without main hearing
By AWA | Posted on June 1, 2011
In April 2010 Eli Lilly and Company (“Lilly”), the manufacturer of the erectile dysfunction pharmaceutical Cialis, was informed that the Swedish customs had ceased a consignment of products marked and/or shaped in such a way that it was suspected to infringe the intellectual property rights of Lilly. The consignment was addressed to an individual, herein...
Tags: EEA, Infringement, Pharmaceuticals
A Favourite in Trademark Law: Repackaging – now gassy
By AWA | Posted on April 14, 2011
Danish courts are traditionally reluctant to ask preliminary questions on the interpretation of EU-legislation. Recently, the Supreme Court has done so, and quite comprehensively. During the 1990’s there were countless cases all over Europe regarding repackaging of products, especially medicines and printer toner cartridges, after parallel imports from one state to another. This case is a new...
The EPO starts cooperation with Google to provide machine translation of patents
By AWA | Posted on March 29, 2011
On 24 March, the EPO and Google signed an agreement to collaborate on machine translation of patents. Using Google Translate technology, the EPO will offer translations into 28 European languages, and into Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Russian. In order to be able to adapt the machine translation to the specific language used in patents, Google...
Filed under: Insights
Tags: EPO, Google, Translation
Most comprehensive patent reform in almost 60 years approved by US senate
By Niklas Mattsson | Posted on March 11, 2011
Most comprehensive patent reform in almost 60 years approved by US senate Historic breakthrough as USA gets to grips with “first-to-invent”, the enormous backlog of patent applications and simplifying procedures for filing patents in the USA. On Tuesday 8 March 2011, the US Senate voted to approve the nation’s most comprehensive patent reform since 1952,...
A brighter future for the EU patent
By Anders Heebøll-Nielsen | Posted on December 13, 2010
A brighter future for the EU patent 11 EU member states have decided to move towards an EU patent under an enhanced cooperation aiming to reduce costs of patenting in the EU. Progress towards implementation of the long desired EU patent has until now been hindered by disagreements between the EU member states regarding translation...
Filed under: Insights
Supplementary protection certificates for plant protection products
By AWA | Posted on November 15, 2010
11 November 2010 the Court of Justice of the European Union issued a preliminary ruling in the case C-229/09 that Supplementary protection certificates for plant protection products may validly be obtained based on provisional marketing authorisations In this recent decision by the Court of Justice (CJ) it was ruled that a supplementary protection certificate (SPC)...
EU survey now open for participation
By Vibeke Warberg Rohde | Posted on August 18, 2010
EU survey now open for participation Every two years the European Commission conducts a survey in order to identify the most important obstacles met by EU citizens applying for and enforcing intellectual property rights in countries outside the EU. The 2010 survey is now open and anyone may participate using the online questionnaire found here....
Filed under: Insights
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