Legal issues, law and regulations concerning the world of IP.
Proceedings recently commenced in the Federal Court of Australia by the Scotch Whisky Association (SWA) serve as a reminder of the ability to use the trade mark system to protect Geographical Indications (GIs) in Australia. The use and protection of GIs in Australia will be of particular interest to followers of the Australian-European Union free trade negotiations, where GIs have been flagged by the European Union as a critical issue.
It was one of those big dramatic days the European Parliament had already seen before. A YES or NO vote in Plenary charged with huge political and social pressure. And, as it is common in these occasions, Members of Parliament were called to vote not about what the text submitted to them actually and literally said (a balanced result of two years of debates, legal analysis and delicate negotiations); but about the catastrophic consequences that a positive vote would have for freedom of speech around the planet.
Internet and all its benefits were threatened if this infamous article 13 of the new Copyright Directive were to pass in its proposed text. Or so pretended the loud voices against it: “If Article13 passes it will change the way that the Internet works, from free and creative sharing to one where anything can be instantly removed, by computers”, said a powerful lobbying NGO. Both battling armies looked for external support: Wikipedia closed down its Italian and Spanish editions; Sir Paul McCartney wrote to the legislators in support of the new rules.
The U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware denied a motion for reargument sought by Alvogen Malta Operations Ltd. (Alvogen) in their dispute against Pernix Ireland Pain DAC and Pernix Therapeutics, LLC, (collectively Pernix) regarding the subject matter eligibility of Pernix’s patents under 35 U.S.C § 101 (§ 101).
Alvogen asserted that, in denying summary judgment, the court misapprehended the claims at issue, and had failed to individually analyze some of the claims.
Waitrose has agreed to stop producing “copycat” chocolate slabs following an ongoing dispute with Hotel Chocolat.
Hotel Chocolat accused Waitrose of infringing its intellectual property rights in its distinctive curved shaped chocolate slab. This was further reinforced when individuals were taking to Twitter to question whether Hotel Chocolat were actually producing the chocolate slabs for Waitrose. Hotel Chocolat requested that Waitrose removed the offending chocolate slabs from sale.
Bill introduced to Parliament that will pave the way for parallel importers in Australia.
Proposed laws favouring the parallel importation of goods are currently being considered by the Australian Parliament. The Intellectual Property Laws Amendment (Productivity Commission Response Part 1 and Other Measures) Bill 2018 (Bill) was introduced to the House of Representatives on 28 March 2018.
The Federal Circuit, in a nonprecedential decision, held that claims of a reissue application were properly rejected because they recaptured subject matter surrendered during the original prosecution of U.S. Patent No. 8,282,591 (“the ’591 patent”).[1]
The ’591 patent is directed to an arteriovenous shunt that connects a graft to an artery and passes returned blood through a “single lumen venous outflow catheter” into the right atrium of a patient’s heart. This system reduces the risk of infection, clotting, and hyperplasia compared to systems that remove and return blood through a graft connected to a vein.[2]
April 26, 2018 is a remarkable date: first it’s World IP Day celebrating IP around the world. Second, and this is unique, the British IP Minister Sam Gyimah MP announced that the UK ratified the Unified Patent Court Agreement (UPC Agreement). By doing so the UK agreed to be bound to both the UPC agreement and the UPC’s Protocol on Privileges and Immunities (PPI). The UPC will be a court common to the contracting member states within the EU having exclusive competence in respect of European Patents and European Patents with unitary effect.
In a big day for inter partes review (IPR) at the U.S. Supreme Court, the Court issued two opinions, Oil States Energy Services, LLC v. Greene’s Energy Group, LLC et al. and SAS Institute Inc. v. Iancu et al.
The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) recently confirmed that the “no-aesthetic-consideration” test is the preferable approach when deciding whether a design is “solely dictated by its technical function”. As a result, if aesthetic considerations are completely irrelevant the design should not be registered. However, this does not mean that the legislation requires a design to have an aesthetical merit in order to be registered as a Community Design.
Last month, the CJEU published their long-waited decision on the request for a preliminary ruling raised by the Oberlandegericht Düsseldorf (the “German Court”) back in 2016.
The CJEU has provided some clarity on the interpretation of Article 8(1) of the Community Design Regulation (CDR) and how to determine if a product’s features are “solely dictated by its technical function”. The CJEU took the chance to stress, once again, that the determination “must be interpreted in a uniform manner in all Member States”, which strongly reiterates the EU’s objective for cohesive legal application.
On 9 March 2018, Byron Bay brewery Stone & Wood lost an appeal in the Australian Full Federal Court of Appeal to Brunswick based brewer Thunder Road with respect to their respective uses of the word PACIFIC for their rival beers.
Stone & Wood sells craft beer, including its best-selling beer “Pacific Ale”. Thunder Road launched its “Thunder Road Pacific Ale” in 2015, which it renamed “Thunder Road Pacific” later that year following letters of demand from Stone & Wood.
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