REFEREES WANTED; END OF THE AFFAIRE

Referees needed

IPKat co-blogmeister Jeremy wants to expand the panel of referees to whom he can send articles for peer review. The Journal of Intellectual Property Law and Practice (JIPLP), which he edits, is peer-reviewed and therefore depends on the support it gets from people who read draft articles and can comment on whether they should be published - ideally within ten days of receipt.

The current panel of referees has been tremendously helpful, but Jeremy doesn't want to work them into the ground: the more referees, the less each person has to do.

If you'd like to volunteer to be added to the JIPLP referees' panel, please email Jeremy here and let him know.


End of the Affaire

Let no-one ever say that OHIM is unhelpful, says the IPKat, after putting in a plea for an explanation of the Court of First Instance decision in L'Affaire T-388/04 (see his earlier blog here) and getting this response from Wolfgang Schramek:

"Article 7(1)(b) CTMR (marks are initially unregistrable if devoid of distinctive character) was not at issue because the applicant had not refuted the examiner’s analisis, which was thus confirmed.

Article 7(3) CTMR (marks are registrable, after all, if they have acquired distinctiveness through use) had been invoked by the applicant before the Board of Appeal and the CFI. The documents submitted were, however, insufficient to show acquired distinctiveness through use. The CFI underlined that Article 7(3) had been applied correctly by the examiner and the Board of Appeal, and that the right to be heard and the right to a legitimate defence had not been violated in the present case".

Many thanks, Wolfgang. The IPKat longs for the day that all European court judgments and office decisions are made available in minority languages like English (!). Till then, it's good to know that there are some Community-minded people who can keep us all informed. Merpel says, some of the English-language decisions need translating into English too.