Last word on expedited trade mark applications; Vonage in trouble

The IPKat has now heard how quickly you can get a trade mark application through in Greece, if you really try. According to his friend Michalis Kosmopoulos you face a wait of ... er, 16 to 18 months, and there are no provisions for expedited applications . Just as well, isn't it, that businesses are never in a hurry to underpin their business plans with a trade mark registration.


Bad news for internet phone company Vonage, via Simon Haslam and the BBC website: the company has lost a patent case that could threaten phone services for its 2.2 million customers, after a US jury ordered Vonage to pay $58m to deadly rival Verizon for infringing three patents, plus royalties of 5.5% of future sales. Verizon has now asked for an injunction that would stop Vonage from connecting its customers to landline telephones.

The IPKat wonders whether, in the light of the Supreme Court ruling in eBay v MercExchange, this is exactly the sort of situation in which, given the likely disruption of so many phone users and the typically licence-related scenario for a solution, injunctive relief would be refused. Merpel says, I wonder who US juries are biased against when both parties in the litigation are American.