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March 18, 2025
AstraZeneca Unit Fights Amgen, Samsung Over Soliris Patent
An AstraZeneca subsidiary sought on Tuesday to prevent Amgen and Samsung Bioepis from selling drugs similar to its Soliris product, claiming at a London court that the two companies' drugs infringe a patent it owns over its blockbuster antibody eculizumab.
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March 18, 2025
Google Fails To Get Trademark Over Peace Sign In EU
European Union officials have rebuffed Google's attempt to get a trademark over an image of a hand showing a peace sign, ruling that the logo isn't distinctive enough.
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March 17, 2025
Shoemaker Urges Justices To Ax 'Absurd' TM Confusion Test
A French footwear company urged the U.K. Supreme Court on Monday to upend a ruling that it infringed Umbro's famous "double diamond" trademark, arguing that the decision provides "no workable limit" on situations where consumers' brand confusion after the point of sale could be a problem.
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March 17, 2025
Chevron Phillips Wins Appeal For Polymer-Making Patent
European officials have regranted Chevron Phillips Chemical Co. rights over a patent for making polymers that are then processed into industrial plastics, ruling that a seventh request to edit its claims had finally made its method worthy of protection.
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March 17, 2025
Brand Management Biz Can't Register 'Tech One' TM
U.K. trademark officials have tossed a Brazilian brand management company's bid to register its trademark "Tech One" for anti-theft alarms and heaters after finding that it clashed with a Finnish decorating supply store's 'Tec 1' trademark.
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March 17, 2025
Alcohol Seller Can't Get 'Magic Monkey' TM In EU
An appeals panel has rejected an alcohol retailer's attempt to register a "Magic Monkey" trademark in the European Union over beers, deeming the logo too similar to a rival's "Dead Monkey" brand.
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March 17, 2025
Dolby Patent Nixed Over Speech-Boosting Audio Tech
A Danish intellectual property organization has persuaded a European appeals board to void Dolby's patent over a way to make speech easier to hear over other noises in an audio transmission.
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March 14, 2025
Brands Eye Stronger TM Protections In Supreme Court Appeal
The U.K.'s top court will hear a high-profile appeal Monday on whether courts weighing trademark disputes should consider whether consumers could confuse two companies' branding on products after the point of sale, in an appeal that could significantly strengthen trademark protections in the U.K.
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March 14, 2025
Lighting Biz Loses Bid To Invalidate Rival's Handrail IP
A lighting manufacturer lost its bid to avoid liability for patent infringement on Friday after a London judge refused to overturn a rival's intellectual property protections for lighted handrail technology.
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March 14, 2025
BAT And Philip Morris Can't Nix Rival's E-Cig Patent
The owner of the Camel tobacco brand has won its bid to patent a flavor-containing capsule for electronic cigarettes, after British American Tobacco and Philip Morris failed to convince European officials that an existing inhaler revealed its key features.
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March 14, 2025
Wholesaler Denies Gray Market Imports In 'Clipper' IP fight
A British smoking and vaping wholesaler has denied lighter manufacturer Flamagas' claim that it infringed its trademark for Clipper lighters by selling Clipper-branded products in the U.K. without its consent.
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March 14, 2025
Fast Food Chain Can't Change TM To Resemble Rival's
A London appeals court ruled Friday that a settlement resolving a copyright infringement dispute between two rival fast food chains could not allow for "reasonable modifications" to a trademark if that mark then became more similar to the rival's sign.
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March 14, 2025
UK Litigation Roundup: Here's What You Missed In London
The past week in London has seen J.P. Morgan face action by the founder of Viva Wallet in an ongoing feud over the company's takeover, retailer Next Group contest a claim by the home ware brand owned by private members' club Soho House, and the venue of the Wimbledon Championships sue a local group opposed to its plans to build new tennis courts on protected land in Wimbledon Park.
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March 13, 2025
Lights Out For German Company's Bulb Design Claim
The European Union's General Court blocked a German retailer's bid to dismiss a Taiwanese lighting company's design for an LED light bulb, with the judge calling the retailer's claims "vague or unsubstantiated."
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March 13, 2025
Tesco Seeks To Limit Lidl Damages Over Clubcard TM
Tesco has asked a London judge to trim the amount of damages Lidl can seek to recover from the British supermarket giant for infringing the German discounter's trademarks through its loyalty pricing program, arguing that its use of the Clubcard logo had damaged its own brand too.
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March 13, 2025
Skyscanner Rival Hits Back At TM Infringement Claims
The operator of a travel search engine has denied that its use of "Fly-Scanner" infringes Skyscanner's trademark, arguing that Skyscanner has taken six years to file a claim because it knew its rival was doing nothing wrong.
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March 13, 2025
Shein Says Bodum French Press, Glass Designs Not Artistic
Shein has denied infringing a Bodum unit's design rights by selling copycat versions of its iconic coffee press and insulated drinking glasses, telling a London patent court that the copyright for the designs should not be in place.
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March 13, 2025
Lewis Silkin Adds Deloitte Legal TM Head As Partner
Lewis Silkin LLP has recruited the head of trademarks at Deloitte Legal as part of a three-person team move to boost its intellectual property offering to clients.
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March 12, 2025
Momofuku Loses UK TM In Battle With Cup Noodles Maker
A London court on Wednesday overturned a decision by U.K. trademark officials allowing a high-end U.S. ramen restaurant chain to hold on to its "Momofuku" mark, following a challenge by the maker of "Cup Noodles" instant ramen.
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March 12, 2025
EasyGroup Loses Remaining 'EasyOffice' TMs
EasyGroup has lost the rights to four of its "easyOffice" marks after U.K. trademark officials sided with the owner of rival EasyOffices in its latest challenge to the marks, finding that easyGroup had not used its branding for office space rentals.
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March 12, 2025
Huawei Claims MediaTek Patents Invalid In 5G Dispute
Huawei has asked a London judge to nix three MediaTek wireless patents it is accused of infringing by selling 5G phones, arguing that documents dating back to 2011 would have motivated scientists to invent the technology.
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March 12, 2025
Iceland Supermarket Can't Skewer Kebab Supplier's TM
Grocery giant Iceland has failed to revoke a kebab meat supplier's trademark, after a judge Tuesday rejected the supermarket chain's arguments that the meat company's logo is too vague as "pedantry."
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March 12, 2025
Florist Says Ex-CEO Diverted Cash Amid False Fraud Claim
A high-end London florist has sued its former CEO for an estimated £4.1 million ($5.3 million) alleging the businessman diverted its revenue before falsely telling customers that the business was insolvent and committing fraud.
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March 12, 2025
'Shorts' TM Too Descriptive Of Short Films For EU Mark
A European Union court has refused to revive an attempt by a film distributor to get a "Shorts" trademark over short films, ruling on Wednesday that the brand is too descriptive to function as a trademark.
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March 11, 2025
Fire-Proof Fabric Maker Sues To Nix Rival's Fire Barrier Patent
A manufacturer of fire-resistant construction materials told a London patent court that a patent owned by its competitor contains features that were already industry-standard, whilst also claiming that its rival had threatened the manufacturer's clients for using its products.
Expert Analysis
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Coming Soon: Paradigm Shift In Genetic Resources Regs
It has been 20 years in the making, but a new regulatory scheme is quickly moving into force, which may impact the development of, and intellectual property rights surrounding, an array of products, including pharmaceuticals, biotech products, agricultural products, nutritionals, supplements, cosmetics, perfumes and fragrances and industrial enzymes, says Bruce Manheim of WilmerHale.
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Best Practices For Navigating Europe's New Patent Process
Perhaps the most exciting development in the European Patent Office is the upcoming launch of the Unitary European Patent system. Europe has historically been a very expensive patent destination due to the need to validate in each desired country, prepare multiple sets of translations and pay annuity fees in multiple countries. For several decades, there has been discussion about a single patent that would confer protection throughout Europe, but no agreement on it has been reached until now, says Jeffrey Shieh of Inovia.
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Declaratory Judgment Act: Must Suppliers Bet The Farm?
The Supreme Court in MedImmune v. Genentech established that a declaratory judgment plaintiff need not "bet the farm" or "risk treble damages" before being able to seek a declaration that its acts do not violate another’s rights. Nonetheless, a line of Federal Circuit cases indicate a trend toward requiring declaratory judgment plaintiffs to do exactly that — "bet the farm" by risking substantial investments in the manufacture or sale of a potentially accused product, say Chris Ryan and Syed Fareed of Vinson & Elkins LLP.
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Kim Dotcom May Be Shooting Himself In The Foot
Internet tycoon Kim Dotcom has claimed that he is the patent holder of a two-step authentication method employed by social media sites such as Facebook and Google and has threatened to sue these companies if they do not agree to help alleviate his mounting legal fees resulting from his impending criminal case on unrelated grounds. Ironically, if the companies take his threats seriously, they may find that they have a strong invalidity challenge to his patent, say attorneys with Haynes and Boone LLP.
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13 FAQs About The EU Unified Patent Court Proposal
After 40 years of debate, the EU has approved a package of proposals that will create a single patent court system for most of the EU. Twenty-five of the 27 EU states have signed the unified patent court agreement, however extensive preparations are required before the UPC opens for business, say Frank Peterreins and John Pegram of Fish & Richardson PC.
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Takeaways From UK's Vestergaard Trade Secrets Case
The U.K. Supreme Court's recent decision in Vestergaard Frandsen A/S v. Bestnet Europe Ltd. demonstrates a clear appreciation of the significance of intellectual property rights to the promotion of commercial enterprise and the need to balance this with the right of former employees to compete honestly with their former employers, say Akash Sachdeva and Ben Hitchens of Edwards Wildman Palmer LLP.
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Myriad Ruling Vs. Biotech Patent Eligibility In Europe
After the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics Inc., practitioners need to ensure that clients’ patent applications are drafted and prosecuted in a way that valuable claims are still obtained in the U.S. while also taking into account the nuances of European biotechnology patent law, say Thomas Haag and Christian Kilger of Fanelli Haag & Kilger PLLC.
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PPH 2.0 Offers Ways To Reduce Prosecution Time And Costs
Recent changes in the Patent Prosecution Highway open up new filing strategies for U.S. inventors who want expedited examination without the costs of Track 1 prioritized examination or who want greater flexibility and lower costs when building international patent portfolios, say attorneys with Foley & Lardner LLP.
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The Patent Box — Unlocking The Potential In UK R&D
The recent introduction of the U.K.'s “patent box” — an initiative to drive down corporation tax for innovative and high-tech companies in the U.K. — should be of interest to companies and multinationals with, or considering acquiring, significant U.K. research and development and other technology-focused development operations, say Arun Birla and Ross McNaughton of Paul Hastings LLP.
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Should You Use A Patent Practitioner Or Litigator For IPR?
Conflicting opinions have been expressed as to whether an experienced “litigator” or an experienced “patent practitioner” is more suited to handling an inter partes review trial before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board. A patent practitioner, particularly one with considerable inter partes experience within the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, will usually be the best choice, says Gerald M. Murphy of Birch Stewart Kolasch & Birch LLP.
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Italian Court's Google Decision: A Significant Precedent
The appellate court in Milan recently published its decision overturning the conviction of three Google Inc. executives for allowing video depicting the bullying of an autistic teenager to be uploaded to the Italian Google Video website. The opinion reduces the potential burdens facing content-hosting providers and other similar Internet companies, say attorneys with Jones Day.
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How The EU Patent Court Will Protect Against Trolls
Many commentators in Europe have worried that the Unified Patent Court will support campaigns of meritless patent litigation comparable to those high-tech companies have seen in the U.S. However, a closer look at the proposed UPC agreement reveals that significant procedural and structural safeguards have been built into the court system to prevent this type of abuse, say attorneys with Ropes & Gray LLP.
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Advantages Of Registering A Unitary European Patent
Any inventor can now introduce an application for a unitary European patent that guarantees a uniform protection and produces identical effects in the 25 states concerned. Since this new unitary patent system establishes a unique annual tax and does not require translations of the application into each national language, the cost of the patent will be drastically reduced, say Paul Van den Bulck and Evelina Roegiers of McGuireWoods LLP.
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Inequitable Conduct: Rethinking 'Egregious Misconduct'
The Federal Circuit's decision in Outside the Box Innovations LLC v. Travel Caddy Inc., alone and collectively with the Federal Circuit's decision in Powell v. The Home Depot Inc., offers some much-needed insight as to the utility and applicability of per se material conduct. But with neither case yielding an affirmative finding of inequitable conduct, the egregious misconduct argument is the pinch hitter who has struck out twice in the batter’s box, say attorneys with Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP.
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How The EU's New Unitary Patent System Will Work
After debating the single patent issue on and off for 40 years, the European Union is on track to complete approval of a package of proposals on Dec. 21, 2012, to create unitary patents for most of the EU and a unified patent court system. As a result, potentially lower cost patent protection and enforcement could be available throughout most of the EU as soon as April 2014, say Frank Peterreins and John Pegram of Fish & Richardson PC.