Never Too Late: if you missed The IPKat last week

Copyright

Eleonora Rosati reviewed a recent decision from the Spanish Supreme Court concerning the protectability of bullfighting by copyright. Having applied the Court of Justice’s practice in Cofemel and Levola Hengelo [see Katposts here and here], the Supreme Court considered that a bullfight does not qualify as a work, thus it is not protectable by copyright.

GuestKat Thomas Key shared the first post in his series, dedicated to the 2021 US Copyright Compendium. The Compendium, now at its third edition, details general practices of the US Copyright Office concerning registration and recordation. In his first post, Thomas reviews the main changes concerning works of artistic craftsmanship (e.g., statuettes or artistic jewelry). The 2021 Compendium introduces for the first time a definition of the “work of artistic craftsmanship”.

Patents

Last week, the EPO held its first European Qualifying Examination (EQE) online. GuestKat Rose Hughes echoed some of the experiences of this year’s candidates about a rather complicated start of the examination.

Trade marks

SpecialKat Tian Lu reviewed a decision by the Chinese First Instance Court of Hunan Province concerning the infringement of a colour trade mark owned by the Zoomlion company. The case involved Zoomlion’s colour trade mark and a competitor’s product bearing a similar colour combination. Tian analyses not only the Chinese court decision itself, but also compares it with similar rulings adopted by the Court of Justice of the European Union.

KatFriend Ian Gill prepared the third review of the latest UK’s trade mark registry appeals to the Appointed Person. These decisions, as discussed in this latest post in the series, cover signs that are customary in the trade, lack of distinctive character, and trade marks with reputation.

Trade secrets

Former Katonomist, Dr. Nicola Searle, shared her views on the economics of trade secrets, cybersecurity and cybercrime. Nicola sustains that more attention shall be given to how trade secret protection and cybercrimes interact: while some years ago, the threat to trade secrets came from the physical world (e.g., through aerial photography), nowadays it is mostly cyber in nature.

Never Too Late 305 [week ending February 28] Illumina v MGI Part 2: Has the UK lost its way on the doctrine of equivalents? | Sisvel v. Haier II: Further insights on German judiciary’s FRAND approach | Book Review: Intellectual Property in the Era of Big Data and Blockchain | High Court grants, for the first time, website blocking orders targeting cyberlocker and streamripping sites/app and considers that CJEU won’t follow AG Opinion in YouTube/Cyando | Assignment in gross, or not? What happened to the goodwill?

Never Too Late 304 [week ending February 21] Five considerations for the transposition and application of Article 17 of the DSM Directive | [Guest post] Here we draw again: the never-ending debate around street art and its removal | Board of Appeal considers the legal basis and effect of the EPO's 2020 COVID-19-related deadline extension (J10/02) | From footnote to endnote to what note?