Here's the third in the series of occasional guest posts from Japan from one-time guest Kat and Class 46 trade mark blogger Laetitia Lagarde. Laetitia's first post, on product placement, can be read here, and her second post, covering non-traditional marks, is here. Now she looks at the copyright/design interface.
In a rush to make their mark and put their slogans into everyone's mouth, Greek party SYRIZA and the main opposition party NEA DIMOKRATIA (or New Democracy) managed to get themselves caught up in a mark - slogan row over Greek word "ΜΠΡΟΣΤΑ" (BROSTA), which means forward. GreeKat Nikos tells all.
Here's a moving story about a Court of Venice decision addressing moral rights in legal works, kindly hosted by Eleonora and passionately told by myself.
An Economist article from this recently-passed August kicks off with the fundamental economic question for IP: how does it incentivise innovation? Pointing to a number of shortcomings in patents in agriculture and pharmaceuticals, The Economist concludes that patents don’t. Here's Nicola's point…
… and here's Neil's counterpoint.
Five-and-a-bit months after the Opinion of Advocate General Wahl was published in Case C-125/14, [here, with Katnote here] in Iron & Smith Kft v Unilever NV, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has delivered its decision in this trade mark dispute concerning relevant territorial scope to assess a trade mark's reputation under Article 4(3) of Directive 2008/95.
Should copyright take morality into account when awarding protection or the benefit from said rights? The Munich District Court has addressed this matter in a controversial litigation involving royalties from a Goebbels work. Guest Kat Jani explains.
A few months ago the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court (IPEC) issued a very interesting decision regarding post-punk bands, copyright and joint authorship in musical works. The case is Minder Music & Another v Sharples. At the time when this judgment was released the IPKat did not have the chance to report on it. This is why it is particularly grateful and truly delighted to host the following analysis by music and IP enthusiast Nedim Malovic (Stockholm University), who takes a look over the decision and offers this insightful analysis.
The fate of the slide-to-unlock technique has been the subject of a much-litigated Apple's patent. Occasional guest contributor Thomas Dubuisson updates the readership on the final chapter in this tale.
******************
PREVIOUSLY, ON NEVER TOO LATE
Never too late 61 [week ending on Sunday 30 August] - Alpinestars Research Srl v OHIM, Kean Tung Cho and Ling-Yuan Wang Yu | PTAB declines Bass hedge fund IPR challenges in Ampyra dispute | Basic AG Lebensmittelhandel v OHIM), Repsol YPF SA and a basic litigation | BGH on IP zombie through unfair competition law | Under Armor and Armor & Glory, a story of religious IP | Fashion law and debates | SatCab Directive and geoblocking | Again on KitKat and acquired distinctiveness | New IPKat policy on comments | Singapore GFIP.
