Never Too Late: if you missed the IPKat last week

Last week, the IPKat certainly supplied us all with an abundance of trade mark law updates! If you missed out on this and reports in other areas of IP, you can catch up in this week's edition of Never Too Late!

Trade Marks

Kat Book Review Editor Hayleigh Bosher reported on Alliance Pharmaceuticals v EUIPO - AxiCorp, which turned on the correct interpretation of a trade mark specification; the literal vs the "common sense approach". Here's what happened.

Should auld GI marks be forgot and never brought to mind?
image source: The Bourbon Review

The whisky industry of Scotland has generated a number of interesting cases lately, and Katfriend Mok Ho Fai told the recent intriguing story of the fate of the ISETAN TARTAN mark in Singapore. When the mark "ISETAN TARTAN" is used for whisky that is not Scotch whiskey, is it of such a nature as to deceive the public as to the whisky's geographical origin? The Singapore High Court says "yes".

A recent decision of the Cancellation Division considered the absolute grounds for refusal of a 3D shape mark (a skull-shaped bottle for vodka). Book Review Editor Hayleigh Bosher pondered whether this shape is devoid of distinctive character and if it substantially enhances the attractiveness of the goods and strongly influences consumer preferences.

In litigation, a party's willingness to withdraw a case avoids not only wasting valuable time, but also the consequences of losing in plain sight and hence exposing one's own weaknesses to both the adversary and curious onlookers. Can – or should – a party be forced to continue the game when the winning party badly wants to expose those weaknesses? GuestKat Peter Ling told us that in the Nivea colour trade mark case (that had been dragging on for eleven years), the German Federal Patent Court answered the question in the negative.

Katfriend Shawn Poon reported on a showdown in Singapore between Harvard College and Harvard Club of Singapore. In a recent IPOS decision, the President and Fellows of Harvard College filed two applications to register “HARVARD CLUB OF SINGAPORE” and “HARVARD UNIVERSITY OF SINGAPORE” in Class 41. They were opposed by the Harvard Club of Singapore.

Looking at an interesting question raised by a case in China, Asia Correspondent Tian Lu considers whether the ungrammatical metaphrase of the Chinese sign counts when it comes to assessing the similarities between two verbal signs - one in Chinese and the other in English. This arose following a trade mark application for 'DAY DAY UP' in class 36, which was rejected due to its similarity with the cited trade mark registration ‘天天向上’ in the same class.

Copyright

Kylie Minogue will be going to bed angry. A copyright dispute in the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court did not end happily for Kylie Minogue's bed linen licensee, Ashley Wilde, and another manufacturer of very similar looking pleats. Alex Woolgar provided further details.

Kat Eleonora Rosati examines copyright protection available to fictional characters and the extent to which it could go, looking at the meaning of a 'work' that is sufficiently 'original' and of the 'right kind', as well as how many and which copyrights it would be entitled to.

Patents

GuestKat Rose Hughes discusses the high-profile CRISPR patent dispute relating to the EPO interpretation of "any applicant" in Article 87(1) EPC, illustrating how clarity is needed from the Boards of Appeal on the EPO's "co-applicant approach" to priority.

GuestKat Rose Hughes also reports on the leaked "451-page dossier" reported by the media recently describing US/UK talks on future trade arrangements, looking particularly at the UK's relations with the EPC and UPC, patent term extension and data exclusivity.

Confidential Information

Africa Correspondent Chijioke Okorie reports on a ruling from the Nigerian Federal High Court, in a suit bordering inter alia on the misuse of confidential information relating to IP. 

Never Too Late 242 [Week ending 24 Nov] Latest fashion law developments in a 1-day course … with an IPKat readers special discount | Never Too Late: if you missed the IPKat last week | Inventorship under the light of AI? | Tuesday Thingies | Economics and IP: the good, the bad and the ugly (and a request for reader feedback)? | Another "Glen", another GI violation- Hamburg Court considers "Glen Els" an Evocation of "Scotch Whisky" | Around the IP Blogs | BREAKING: German constitutional court Brexit-delay rumours are "bulls***" in on-going UPC saga | "Many are called but few are chosen": When a claim of bad faith succeeded in a trademark matter in Singapore | [Guest Post] IP Education Series #3 | FRAND: OLG Karlsruhe rules on nature, extent and timing of obligations under Huawei v ZTE | JMLS IP Conference (Report 1): Antitrust, IP, data and FRAND - time for a retool? | Shifting the burden of proof back to the patentee (T 1299/15) | JMLS IP Conference (Report 2): Patent eligibility, anti-anti suits and the era of unpredictability | UCL IBIL Event: Boris v Corbyn v Trump - putting a price on patents, medicine and innovation | CJEU follows up on Soulier and Doke and rules that presumption of consent of performers in relation to exploitation of recordings is not necessarily contrary to EU law | GC excludes likelihood of confusion between marks representing stylized human figure and relating to same goods due to low distinctiveness of shared concept | Amsterdam district court orders Google to take offline fake reviews | [Guest post] Polish Constitutional Tribunal rules that rightholders can claim damages amounting to twice a hypothetical licence fee in copyright infringement cases

Never Too Late 241 [Week ending 17 Nov] It may be the name of a fashion style, but is it trade mark use? | Bentley Motors found you have infringed small clothing firm’s ‘Bentley’ trade marks | Monday Miscellany | “Weel done, Cutty-Sark”--from poem to sailing ship to whisky: What’s in a name? | IPEC no longer London-focuses as IP small claims track reaches courts in Newcastle, Manchester, Cardiff and beyond | Can an employee’s freedom of expression trump their confidentiality obligations? The ECtHR weighs in (in a case concerning an employee’s personal website) | Around the IP Blogs | Wednesday Whimsies | Ferrero succeeds in enforcing is rights in the Tic Tac container before Italian court | Never Too Late: If You Missed the IPKat | In order to be irreplaceable, one must always be different: Chanel in trade mark dispute over GABRIELLE mark - again | [Guest post] Rome court rules that iconic photograph of judges Falcone and Borsellino is not a photographic artwork