Around the IP Blogs

Patents

SpicyIP discussed the Indian’s Parliament Standing Committee’s recommendations concerning AI and patent protection. These recommendations are part of a Report of the Standing Committee, which recommended revising Indian’s IPR legislation to ‘extract benefits from AI’. The Report accordingly recommends amending Indian patent law, to make AI-generated works and AI solutions patentable.

Trade marks

Lindt’s bunnies are once again in the heart of trade mark case law [earlier instances were reported here and here by The IPKat]. The German Federal Supreme Court has ruled that the golden foil Lindt’s bunnies are protected by trade mark rights. Kluwer Trademark Blog reported here on this ruling.

The Fashion Law analysed a recent lawsuit, filed in the federal court in Massachusetts by the American sports footwear company, New Balance, against Michael Kors, an American fashion brand. New Balance claims that Michael Kors’ use of a letter ‘N’ on footwear is confusingly similar to New Balance’s trade mark and trade-dress protected design of its sneakers.

Other

Class 46 blog shared information on a new initiative by the Chinese government. Effective September 1, Chinese authorities will create a list of companies that, has engaged in illicit and dishonest conduct including serious IPR infringements (‘the Seriously Illicit or Dishonest List in Market Supervision and Administration’). The companies on the List will be subject to stricter and more frequent inspections by market authorities.

Foss Blog pondered privacy concerns when using Apple apps. The blog’s author compares two situations: how Apple refused to allow the British government to trace users of a COVID-contact tracing app, while the same company requires access to your location when using the Shazam app to search for a new song.