News: Uncategorized

M&M’s banned in Sweden in trademark dispute

By AWA Editor | Posted on June 9, 2016

According to the decision, “m” and “m&m’s” are confusingly similar to Kraft foods trademark “m” for chocolate-covered peanuts, sold in Sweden under the Marabou brand with a single “m” on the packaging. Therefore, Mars is guilty of trademark infringement, the Court asserts. Mars first started marketing M&M’s in Sweden in 2009. Kraft Foods product has...

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The US dominated international patent and trademark filings in 2015

By AWA Editor | Posted on June 8, 2016

2015 was another year of growth for worldwide intellectual property filings, according to statistics from WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization). Patent applications, as well as trademark and industrial design applications increased during the year. During 2015, international patent applications under WIPO’s Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) grew by 1.7% to 218,000, a new annual record. Despite...

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Celebrate World IP Day

By AWA Editor | Posted on April 26, 2016

The theme for this year’s celebration is “culture in the digital age: how we create it, how we access it, how we finance it.” In 2000, WIPO’s member states decided that this day would be a World Intellectual Property Day with the aim of increasing general understanding of IP. It is the same date as...

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Increase of cybersquatting due to new top level domains

By AWA Editor | Posted on March 30, 2016

Last year, trademark owners filed 2,754 “cybersquatting” cases with WIPO, an increase of 4.6% over the previous year. Cybersquatting typically means the registration of a domain name with bad faith intent to profit from the goodwill of a trademark belonging to someone else. The cases filed under WIPO’s Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP)...

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Swedish government initiates an IP drive

By AWA Editor | Posted on March 24, 2016

As a start of this drive the Swedish Ministry of Enterprise, Energy and Communications arranged a seminar in Stockholm on 23 March. People from innovative companies, authorities, organizations and universities were invited to speak and debate. One of the participating innovators was Awapatent’s successful client Mehrdad Mahdjoubi from Orbital Systems.

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European patent applications continue to grow

By AWA Editor | Posted on March 9, 2016

The 2015 annual report of the European Patent Office (EPO) shows that 160 000 European patent applications were filed with the EPO last year. This is an increase with 4.8 percent. The growth came mainly from companies in the US and China, while applications originating from the 38 EPO member states remained almost unchanged. The...

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IKEA loses its trademark in Indonesia

By AWA Editor | Posted on February 12, 2016

Swedish furniture retailer IKEA has lost the rights to its own trademark in Indonesia. The Indonesian supreme court has ruled that the trademark belongs to the local rattan furniture company PT Ratania Khatulistiwa. In 2013, the Indonesian company registered the trademark IKEA – an acronym for Intan Khatulistiwa Esa Abadi, which refers to the rattan...

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WIPO: Continued growth for patent and trademark applications

By AWA Editor | Posted on January 25, 2016

According to the 2015 edition of the World Intellectual Property Indicators report, published by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), the number of patent and trademark applications filed around the world continues to grow. In 2014, patent filings worldwide increased by 4.5 percent and trademark filings by 6.0 percent. China is the main driver of...

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Ericsson and Apple agree on patent ceasefire

By AWA Editor | Posted on January 22, 2016

Technology companies Ericsson and Apple have agreed to end all ongoing patent-infringement litigation between the companies. The deal includes a global cross license for patented standard-essential technologies and for other patent rights. According to the agreement, which will last for seven years, Apple will make an initial payment to Ericsson and, thereafter, will pay on-going...

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