MORE BEER, LESS MONEY

Design fees consultation

Last week the Patent Office launched a new consultation concerning proposals to alter the fees for registered designs. This follows an informal consultation which lasted until January of this year. The proposal, in summary form, is as follows:

3.1 We propose to reduce the cost of registering new designs where they are applied for in a new multiple design application.

3.2 We intend to offer customers a choice of paying the application fee and publication together (in which case the design will be registered and published as soon as practical) or of paying only the application fee and giving customers the option of paying the publication fee later but within the statutory maximum period of 12 months. Customers can thereby choose when, or if, their design proceeds to registration and only pay the outstanding publication fee at that stage.

The precise level of the new fees would be set after the outcome of the consultation became known.

The Patent Office is particularly keen to hear from users of the design system. Send your response by 31 May to Janet Folwell.

The IPKat says: cheaper IP rights – it can’t be bad!

More on Budweiser

As the IPKat reported earlier, Anheuser-Busch is to appeal the decision by the European Court of Human Rights finding that there had been no breach of its right to peaceful enjoyment of its possessions under Art.1 Protocol 1 where the Portuguese Government stripped the American company of the BUDWEISER trade mark which had not been finally registered. What this means is that the case will be heard by the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights, which is made up of 17 judges, including the President, Vice-Presidents and Section Presidents. The case is listed as a pending case on the court’s website, but no projected date is given. For those eager beavers who want to track the case it’s Anheuser-Busch Inc. v Portugal (Application no. 73049/01).

The IPKat suspects that it’s all a conspiracy to render the English translation of the original E Ct HR decision obsolete as soon as it became available. Merpel notes that the top news story for Budweiser on Google News has nothing to do with human rights. Instead it concerns the record catch in a Budweiser-sponsored fishing competiton.