Never Too Late: If You Missed the IPKat

Have you been lacking off on IP news reading to watch Netflix's A Christmas Prince? Naughty you, your secret is safe with us.

Trade Mark 

The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has ruled that the indication of the affiliation with a local waste collection may influence consumers’ purchasing decision and consequently contribute to maintain or create a share in the market for the goods or services protected by the mark. In its judgment in C‑143/19 P, the CJEU annulled the General Court (GC) and the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) decisions regarding the revocation of the collective mark “Representation of a circle with two arrows”. GuestKat Antonella Gentile has the story.

Excuse me, this doesn't taste like grouse at all.
image source: Whiskey Intelligence

The Scotch Whiskey industry drama continues. Kat Friend Dr Titilayo Adebola, Lecturer in Law at the University of Aberdeen, provides the an update on a recent case involving the enforcement of the Scotch Whisky mark in Australia. The Scotch Whisky Association instituted the Federal Court action following an ABC investigation which revealed sales of whisky produced in Orange, Australia being sold as Scotch Whisky produced in Scotland, in breach of Australian trade mark law.


Artificial Intelligence, Cryptoassets

The World Intellectual Property Organization has launched a public consultation process on artificial intelligence and intellectual property policy, inviting feedback on an issues paper designed to help define the most-pressing questions likely to face IP policy makers as AI increases in importance. They followed up with surveys and events throughout 2019, and published its issues paper with a call for comments from the widest-possible global audience on all areas of IP law. Read Book Reviews Editor Hayleigh Bosher's post to participate.

GuestKat Ieva Giedrimaite writes a legal statement issued by the UK Jurisdiction Taskforce on the status of cryptoassets and smart contracts under the English and Welsh law.  Cryptoassets as property UKJT has concluded that cryptoassets are to be treated in principle as property.

Earlier this month, Supreme People’s Court of China (SPC) published a significant white paper titled Chinese Courts and the Internet Judiciary (downloadable here, in Chinese and in English). This 135-page document is a must-read for anyone who would like to have an overview of what efforts China has made towards building online judiciary courts using big data, cloud computing, artificial intelligence and blockchain, to understand how the online frameworks for diversified dispute resolution and litigation services have taken shape, and to know how judicial rules and policies on cyberspace governance have been established in China. Asia Correspondent Tian Lu provides a brief introduction to the white paper.

Book of the year

Back by popular demand, the IPKat will again open an opportunity for readers to nominate and celebrate their favourite IP books of 2019. Your opinion is valued, please click here to vote before December 31st.

Copyright 

For those of you who are not yet nauseated by UK politics, there was a major election last week, and this election campaign has had more than its fair share of campaigning tactics that are dubious from an IP perspective. For example, the Conservative Party registered and promoted a website that contained a critique of the Labour manifesto. The campaign group Led By Donkeys registered thebrexitparty.com, offering it to sell the domain to the real Brexit Party for £1 million (and rising). It seems, however, that the best has been saved until last. Guest Kat Alex Woolgar has further juicy details.

Patent 

GuestKat Rose Hughes writes about an EPO case related to a dispute between Bombardier and Siemens regarding Bombardier’s EP patent for a train carriage. The case centred around whether the transfer of the train from Bombardier to TDR could be considered to have taken place under conditions of confidentiality. Another key question was whether the burden of proof placed on Siemens in opposition had been the equivalent of asking them to prove a negative (or more philosophically speaking, had it been like asking the opponent to prove the existence of the philosophical "celestial teapot").