News

Week’s news headlines – aug. 15th 2014

Washington Redskins appeal against trademark cancellation

National Football League team the Washington Redskins has filed an appeal against the US Trademark Trial and Appeal Board’s (TTAB’s) split decision to cancel the side’s trademarks, it said yesterday (August 14).

The team filed the appeal at the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.

Read more: http://www.worldipreview.com/news/washington-redskins

 

 

Tesco unworried by trademark rebuke

Supermarket group Tesco has shrugged off its failure to register its signature blue dashes as a trademark.

The chain has had its attempts to trademark the dashes, used under each letter of the store’s name, rejected by the UK Intellectual Property Office (IPO).

But, in a statement to WIPR, the UK-based company dismissed the rejection as “a preliminary stage of an ongoing process.”

Read more: http://www.worldipreview.com/news/tesco-unworried

 

 

Victoria´s Secret perde

La justicia de Londres negó a Victoria´s Secret continuar utilizando la marca Pink en el Reino Unido.

Read more: http://www.marcasur.com/es/noticia.asp?NoNoId=3217

 

 

Traspaso de marcas

La acusación de la autoridad en contra del mayor grupo cervecero del país se resolvió con traspaso de marcas a sus propietarios.

Read more: http://www.marcasur.com/es/noticia.asp?

 

 

Nombre de dominio ciberocupado

El nombre de dominio selfridges.com.ar, ciberocupado ilegalmente, fue recuperado recientemente.

El equipo legal de la firma argentina O´Conor Power recuperó recientemente el nombre de dominio selfridges.com.ar, ciberocupado ilegalmente y que refiere a una de las prestigiosas tiendas de venta al por menor del Reino Unido, Selfridges Retail Limited.

Read more: http://www.marcasur.com/es/noticia.asp?

 

 

Terry Gilliam sued by street artists over new film

Former Monty Python star Terry Gilliam has been accused of copyright infringement by street artists for reproducing one of one of their wall murals in his new film starring Matt Damon.

The artists, two Argentines and a Canadian, accuse Gilliam and the film’s production company of “blatant misappropriation” of their work in the forthcoming film The Zero Theorem.

Read more: http://www.worldipreview.com/news/terry-gilliam

 

 

Oracle Moves a Step Closer to Winning IP Copyright Case

A judge specifies that Rimini Street installed unlicensed copies of Oracle PeopleSoft on its systems, violating copyrights.

Oracle received good news Aug. 14 on one of its legal fronts.

The U.S. District Court in Las Vegas granted the Redwood City, Calif.-based company’s motion for partial summary judgment in its case against third-party enterprise IT support provider Rimini Street and its CEO, Seth Ravin, in its charges of theft of Oracle’s intellectual property.

Read more: http://www.eweek.com/news/oracle-moves-a-step-closer

 

 

Gap and Levi Strauss embroiled in patent claim

Fashion brand Levi Strauss and retailers Gap and VF Corp have come under fire after being accused of infringing patented technology used to provide a faded effect commonly used on jeans.

In separate lawsuits filed at the US District Court for the Northern District of Texas, the retailers are accused of infringing the technology “without authority consent or a license”.

Read more: http://www.worldipreview.com/news/gap-and-levi-strauss

 

 

Absinthe denied geographical indication

The Swiss Federal Administrative Court (FAC) has ruled that the terms ‘absinthe’, ‘fée verte’ (green fairy) and ‘la bleue’ are generic terms, and cannot be used only by Switzerland-based producers of the spirit.

In its August 8 decision, the court overturned a 2013 decision by the Federal Office for Agriculture (FOAG) that confirmed registration for the denominations as protected geographical indications.

Read more: http://www.worldipreview.com/news/absinthe-denied

 

 

Toys R Us in first post-grant review patent trial

A US toy manufacturer has teamed up with multinational chain Toys R Us to file the first Post-Grant Review (PGR) petition to challenge a patent related to the popular Rainbow Loom craze.

New Jersey-based LaRose Industries has called into question US Patent 8,684,420, which covers the methods used in colourful bracelets, including the Rainbow Loom.

Read more: http://www.worldipreview.com/news/toys-r-us-in-firs

 

 

Troll de patente quer processar todos que produzem dispositivos com tela LCD

Sempre falamos sobre quebra de patentes e até troll de patente. Eles existem aos montes e possuem um único objetivo: adquirir patentes, aparentemente sem importância, para poderem processar grandes empresas e ganharem dinheiro.

Read more: http://www.tudocelular.com/curiosidade/noticias/n40395/troll

 

 

The assault on patents

The United States patent system is under assault. The most significant changes to patent system in the past two centuries have been, or are in the process of being made. Congress is considering amending patent law to curtail litigation by nonpracticing entities, or “patent trolls,” as they’re pejoratively known, even though their impact on the patent system is open to debate. President Barack Obama has compared patent trolls to extortionists.
Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/judicial/214943

 

 

Pepsi owner claims ‘no merit’ in billion-dollar Aunt Jemima battle

The owner of soft drink Pepsi and The Quaker Oats Company have claimed there is “no merit” in a $2 billion lawsuit levied against it by the heirs of a woman whose image was used on one of its brands.

In a statement, PepsiCo said that although it could not discuss details of the impending lawsuit it believes there were no grounds for the complaint.

Read more: http://www.worldipreview.com/news/pepsi-owner-claims-no

 

 

Fabergé settles New York lawsuit

Jeweller Fabergé has reportedly settled a trademark dispute with a New York restaurant of the same name.

The jeweller had sued Faberge, which does not use an accent on the final ‘e’ and replaced the ‘a’ with an Eiffel Tower image, for “shameless” trademark infringement in June.

Read more: http://www.worldipreview.com/news/faberg-settles-new-york

 

 

Counter crop patents by freeing seeds to feed the world

The organization that controls Internet names is making it harder and more expensive for trademark owners to protect their brands online.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) recently began to release new generic top-level domains (gTLD). These are are the endings of Web addresses, such as .com, .org or .net. Until 2013, there were only 22 of them.

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/business/2014/08/12/Business

 

 

Gambia: ‘Gov’t Committed to Intellectual Property Protection’

The permanent secretary at the Ministry of Tourism and Culture has reaffirmed that The Gambia Government is committed to strengthening the copyright sub-sector of the country for the protection of the intellectual property and the creative community.

Read more: http://allafrica.com/stories/201408121510.html

 

 

New intellectual property laws for small businesses

Registered design right holders in the small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) sector will be better protected by changes under the Intellectual Property Act, with fines and possible prison sentences for deliberate copying, sending a clear message to potential perpetrators.

Read more: http://www.freshbusinessthinking.com/news.php

 

 

Thai firms urged to register copyrights, patents to forestall overseas piracy

The Intellectual Property Department has warned businesses to register their patents, trademarks or copyrights before trading in markets both local and international, as some Thai products have been copied and sold overseas.

Read more: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/business/Thai-firms-urged

 

 

Canada: Major Changes On The Way To Trade-Marks Legislation

The Government of Canada, as part of Bill C-31 ( Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No. 1 – Division 25 ), has put forward legislation that will make major changes to the Trade-Marks Act, R.S.C. 1985, c. T-13. Once Bill C-31 has been proclaimed into force, the way that businesses create and protect their trade-marks in Canada will be changed significantly

Read more: http://www.mondaq.com/canada/x/334186/Trademark/Major+Changes

 

 

Can you trademark ‘real estate’? Battle heats up in intellectual property land grab

A trademark battle is emerging in the Australian real estate industry, with the Real Estate Institute of Australia (REIA) slamming a move by the REA Group to trademark “realestate.com.au”.

Read more: http://www.smartcompany.com.au/legal/43231-can-you

 

 

US Patent Office rejects Apple autocomplete patent used against Samsung

The decision by the USPTO, while relevant to the most recent Apple v. Samsung patent-infringement trial, isn’t final and could take months or years to come to conclusion.

Read more: http://www.cnet.com/news/us-patent-office-rejects-apple

 

 

ICE Purchases Automated Trading Patents

The IntercontinentalExchange Group (ICE) has announced the acquisition of several patents related to electronic trading strategies, in an implicit bid to protect clients from predatory patent buyers.

Most of the patents in the deal, the terms of which were not disclosed, handle pricing and order entry systems in electronic trading environments, particularly automated ones. The patents in question are 7,177,8337,251,6298,498,9238,478,6878,660,9408,732,048and 8,725,621, along with various pending patents.

Read more: http://www.waterstechnology.com/sell-side-technology

 

 

Minister floats science funding based on patents not papers

ELEANOR HALL: The Australian Academy of Science has rejected the Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane’s proposal that science research funding should be tied to patents rather than scientific papers.
In a speech yesterday, Mr Macfarlane said the grant allocation scheme should drive the creation of jobs but the secretary of science policy with the Australian Academy of Science says this is a flawed approach, as David Mark reports.

Read more: http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2014/s4062660.htm

 

 

Patents that kill

IN 1742 Benjamin Franklin invented a new type of stove, for which he was offered a patent. Franklin refused it, arguing in his autobiography that because “we enjoy[ed] great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours.”

Read more: http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2014/08/innovation

Our specialties

aSee our main areas of expertise