The United Kingdom (“UK”) left the European Union (“EU”) on 31 January 2020 and Brexit’s transition period will end on 31 December 2020. Here is what will change for EU trademarks (“EUTM”) starting on 1 January 2021
Due to the restrictions caused by Covid-19, the Benelux Office for Intellectual Property (the “BOIP”) and the European Union Intellectual Property Office (the “EUIPO”) have decided to extend the deadlines in connection with procedures
On 2 April 2020, the Court of Justice of the European Union (“CJEU”) rendered a judgment (C-567/18) clarifying the potential liability of Amazon and other operators of online platforms for trade mark infringement.
On 2 April 2020, the Court of Justice of the European Union (“CJEU”) rendered a judgment (C-753/18) in which the much-discussed concept of “communication to the public”, relevant for copyright-protected works in the EU, is further elucidated.
Recently the Court of Appeal of The Hague handed down an important decision on the issue of the transfer of priority rights under the European Patent Convention ("EPC"), which is a first in the Netherlands.
Business secrets have long been poorly protected and difficult to defend compared to intellectual property rights (including patents, copyrights and trademarks).
Although the implementation should have been enacted by 9 June 2018, Luxembourg has finally published, on 13 August, the first draft bill implementing Directive 2016/943 on the protection of undisclosed know-how and business information.
The CJEU sided with Mitsubishi and ruled that a trade mark proprietor has the right to oppose the removal by third parties of its trade marks and their replacement with other marks, even if the products
In its recent Nestlé v Mondelez decision (C-84/17P, C-85/17P and C-95/17P), the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) confirmed that the acquisition of distinctive character by non-traditional EU trade marks (EUTM) should be established for the entire European Union not just a substantial part thereof.
Over the last five years, the European Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO), through the European Observatory on Infringements of Intellectual Property Rights (Observatory), has carried out research into the consequences of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) infringement in the EU and published the results in June (Full report available here)
