Around the IP Blogs

Patents

The IP Helpdesk blog informed on compulsory licensing of patents in India. The author reviewed several cases where compulsory licenses were granted by Indian authorities, including those in the field of pharmaceuticals [see also an earlier post on this topic on The IPKat].

Trade marks

IPTango reported on recent developments with registration of collective trade marks in Peru. Notably, the number of registrations has been growing exponentially since 2017, and in late 2020, the Peruvian IP Office (INDECOPI) cancelled registration fees for collective trade marks. The topic was followed up with another post from the same blog, this time on collective trade marks in Argentina. Same as Peru, registration of collective trade marks in Argentina is free of charge. Nevertheless, the number of registrations per year is declining, which the authors attribute to a change in government administration.

The Class 46 blog summarised the Beijing IP Court’s practice in six cases, where parties were fined for adducing fake evidence in trade mark litigation. All six cases were related to non-use claims. Trade mark owners submitted falsified documents in seeking to prove use of their trade marks.

The Fashion Law blog commented on the latest development in the 25-year-long fight between H&M and Adidas, in which the Dutch Supreme Court recently issued a ruling in favour of H&M. The trade mark lawsuit originated from a sportwear line from H&M, launched in the mid-1990s, which included two parallel vertical stripes on the sleeves and side of pants [see also The IPKat post on this case from as early as 2008]. The Dutch court has ruled that such stripes did not infringe the Adidas’ three-stripes trade mark.

Other

The Comparative Patent Remedies prepared an overview of recent academic papers and blog posts on FRAND (licensing on fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory) issues and dispute resolution.