Friday Fantasies

 The IPKat, India bound

India's new Intellectual Property Policy. The IPKat has been racking up the airmiles over the past week, investigating the Indian government's new IP policy. The policy promises to streamline the processes for applying for trade marks and patents and establish specialist courts for IP disputes.  The policy lists several key objectives, including:

• To modernize and strengthen IPR administration.  In particular, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has pledged to reduce the time period for registering a trade mark to one month by 2017.
• To strengthen the enforcement and adjudicatory mechanisms for combating IPR infringements.   

Many thanks to Katfriend R.S. Praveen Raj, a former patent examiner for the Indian government, for informing the IPKat about this development. You can read the full policy here.

Paramount Pictures opposes trade mark application by shoe emporium:  Paramount says it has been using its trade mark since 1972. The Sneakerdon applied to register its trade mark in the US in August 2015. Paramount Pictures has opposed Sneakerdon's application. Sneakerdon may try the parody defence, but this is always a difficult argument before the USPTO. It may be that that Snearkerdon's application will shortly be resting with the fishies.... 

IP gets a mention in the Queen's Speech:  At the State Opening of Parliament, the Queen announces the laws that the government hopes to get approved by Parliament in the coming year. This year's speech, given earlier this week, promised to bring in a new bill to tackle unjustified threats relating to IP rights.  Yesterday, Baroness Neville-Rolfe, Minister for IP, introduced the Intellectual Property Unjustified Threats Bill in the House of Lords (track the status of the Bill here).  According to the IPO's e-mail update the Bill will:

She who wears the crown,
said very little about IP
this year....

"help create an IP environment that favours negotiation and settlement rather than litigation. It proposes changes that help clarify the existing provisions making the provisions more consistent across the relevant IP rights - patents, trade marks and designs."

Key elements of the Bill include:

• protecting retailers, suppliers and customers against unjustified threats
• bringing the law for trade marks and designs into line with that for patents by allowing a rights holder to challenge someone who is a primary actor without fear of facing a groundless threats action
• protecting professional advisers from facing personal legal action for making threats when they act for their clients
• making the necessary changes to threats law so that the protection against unjustified threats can apply to European patents that will come within the jurisdiction of the Unified Patent Court

Thanks to Robert Watson at Mewburn Ellis LLP for spotting this in the Queen's Speech and Vicki Salmon (IP Asset) for flagging the IPO's statement.  If you have any questions please feel free to email them to IPUnjustifiedThreats@ipo.gov.uk

AIPPI Trade Mark Reform seminar:  As summarized in the guest post earlier this week, AIPPI's seminar on the Trade Mark Reforms elicited a great deal of debate and discussion.  If this left you wanting more, you can delve back into the detail of the evening via a guest contribution from Alex Woolgar (Allen & Overy) which has been posted on the MARQUES Class 46 blog here.

WIPO's roving seminar takes them to France:  The IPKat is pleased to announce an excellent (and free) opportunity to learn about WIPO and network with like minded professionals at two events being held in France - the first in Paris (7 June 2016) and the second in Lille (9 June 2016).  Presentation and event materials will be in French. For more information and to sign up click here.

Fancy contributing to the Kat. Be it by Guest Post or Comment, have a quick read of our policies here and get writing/commenting.