ONION WITH BURGERS; LATEST IP&T

Onion with burgers

The IPKat enjoyed this cute item in US satirical journal The Onion about integrity-themed burger restaurants. It's a must-read for anyone who enjoys pondering issues at the interface of brand ethos and consumerism. One of the planks on which the burger chain proposes to trade is that

"we will offer full, voluntary disclosure on the ingredients of all our dishes, including our world-famous secret pancake recipe, as our customers have the right to know exactly what makes them so darn fluffy".

Latest IP&T

The June issue of LexisNexis Butterworths Intellectual Property and Technology Cases has now reached the IPKat. This series, the paper-based support for the company's IP&T online subscription service, has a handsome sleek glossy black cover - but it's the contents that most impress. This issue contains reports on seven cases, including

* CFPH LLC v Comptroller of Patents, an important UK decision of Peter Prescott QC, sitting as a Deputy Judge, on how to test for patentability of inventions that have a strong element of computer software or business methods;

* Madaus v OHIM, a ruling of the Court of First Instance of the European Communities on finding similarity between trade marks that are nearly the same because they both have dominant, but descriptive, prefixes (in this case ECHINAID and ECHINACIN, where ECHINA- is short for the ingredient, echinacea (above, right);

* J Pereira Fernandes SA v Mehta, a Chancery Division from Manchester on whether the requirement that a guarantee by in writing and signed by the guarantor is satisfied by sending an email.