Never Too Late: if you missed the IPKat last week

This Kat has had entirely too much turkey

With another year drawing to a close, there's roundups and retrospectives all round.

Copyright

The first instalment of SpecialKat and Africa Correspondent Chijioke Okorie's 2020 Africa IP Highlights roundup shone a light on key decisions and reforms in the copyright sphere.

Trade Marks

Turning to trade marks, the second 2020 Africa IP Highlights instalment gave a chronological overview of the past year's trade mark and designs developments across the continent. 

Katfriend Darren Meale presented Retromark Volume VIII with a look back at nine of the most noteworthy recent cases in EU and English trade mark law.

A recent decision from Singapore confirms the possibility of registering a trade mark containing the same word or component as a pre-existing trade mark, so long as the similar element has a low level of distinctiveness, according to a case report by Katfriends Jennifer Lim Wei Zhen and Claudia Borghini.

Keeping in the distinctiveness vein, GuestKat Riana Harvey reported on the UK Intellectual Property Office's refusal of a registration attempt by Tefal of the 'red dot' it places in the centre of its cookware products, discussing trade mark use, sub-brands, technical function, acquired distinctiveness, and survey evidence.

Patents

With the final instalment of the 2020 Africa IP Highlights series, the patent and design field came to the fore, with a summary of the most significant developments - many of them related to COVID-19, whether in the form of public calls to reform South African IP laws to ensure access to COVID-19 health products or innovative responses to problems such as PPE shortages.

GuestKat Léon Dijkman considered whether the so-called 'injunction gap' in bifurcated patent systems such as Germany (i.e. when patent validity and infringement are considered in separate proceedings by different courts) violates defendants' Article 6 ECHR rights, suggesting that courts should stay infringement proceedings where the defendant convincingly argues that it is more likely than not that the patent will be found to be invalid.

Other

Reporting in the wake of Fashion Law London's latest event, titled Fashion Renaissance: A Unique Year In Review, Katfriend Vito Spedito summarised presentations given about key developments in the fashion and retail sectors, including by Fashion Law London Co-Founder (and PermaKat) Dr Eleonora Rosati.

SpecialKat Hayleigh Bosher reviewed the Research Handbook on Intellectual Property and Digital Technologies, edited by Tanya Aplin, which forms part of the Edward Elgar Research Handbooks in Intellectual Property Series edited by FoundingKat Jeremy Phillips. She recommended it as a wide-ranging look at the relationship between digital technologies and various areas of intellectual property law, both as the law currently stands and in terms of future challenges and research areas.

Never Too Late 295 [Week ending December 13] Chappelle's Show on Netflix - the unforgiving tension between an artist and the creations he does not own | Artists speak out at the UK Economics of Music Streaming Inquiry | A performance review: is copyright doing its job in the music industry? | CJEU assesses the scope of ‘genuine use’ and considers that the resale of vehicles and replacement parts thereof amounts to ‘genuine use’ | “What, there was a mark on goods in the container?”: Loosening the trademark liability of a freight forwarder | Have you considered the effect of Brexit on the territorial scope of a trademark license? | PEB (seems to) confirm that candidates will not be disqualified for writing during the time allocated for screen breaks and upload time | [Event Report] SIPLR Conference - IP in the Digital Environment | IPKat Book of the Year Awards 2020 | [Guest Post] Study on Trends and Developments in Artificial Intelligence: Challenges to the IPR Framework | Blockchain Standard for IP Offices: The WIPO Blockchain Projects 

Never Too Late 294 [Week ending December 6] Australian High Court overturns 150 years of precedent to adopt exhaustion of rights doctrine for patented products | EQE 2021: Further details on examination timings and paper format released | IFIM Holiday Seminar – Tales of the New Doctors of Law | Is it time to move on from the AI inventor debate? | Wondering how to draft an order for a website blocking injunction? Read the Matchroom Boxing Limited Case | “The Queen’s Gambit”, “Emma” and the changing dynamics of content creation, distribution and star power