LIONS; LICENSEES; 26 & 27

An away win for England

The International Herald Tribune reports that the Beijing's No. 1 Intermediate People's Court has upheld a decision protecting the England three-lions trade mark. The mark was registered in 2001, although not before a dispute with the Xiangshi Celebration Service Company (the defendant in this case), which applied to register its own three-lions logo.

The IPKat is frankly baffled as to why anyone would want to emulate the England football team.


Protection for patent licensees

Blackenterprise.com reports that the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry is proposing measures to protect licensees of patents where the owners of the patents merge or go bankrupt. While such licensees are currently protected in principle, in practice the licences need to be registered through a cumbersome process which is little-used. The new regime would seek to improve this by removing the requirement that the individual patents be disclosed. Instead, it would be sufficient to register the blanket contract.

The IPKat welcomes protection for users of blanket licences

The IPKat is in favour of any step that reduces inconvenience for licensees in circumstances that are beyond their control and further notes that, if the licenses are economically efficient, the ultimate beneficiaries of their continued existence will be consumers.


Welcome to the EU

The IPKat welcomes Bulgaria and Romania into the EU, as of midnight.

The good news for IP owners is a wider geographical scope of Community trade marks and Community designs (and the Community patent, if it ever happens, adds Merpel wickedly).