Around the IP Blogs

The week that is about to end has witnessed extremely concerning developments. The IPKat Team wishes to express its solidarity to all those who are suffering right now.

Two Kats embracing the spirit of fraternity and friendship during difficult times.

The coverage of blog news over the past few days is as follows:

Copyright

The Kluwer Copyright Blog posted an article discussing the threshold of originality and wonders if seasonal creations would eventually meet the threshold to ensure copyright protection for these creations. 

Meanwhile, the IPWatchdog reported US Copyright Office's decision about AI-Authorship involving a work made by an artificial intelligence software. Our PermaKat Eleonora Rosati commented on the decision here.

Designs

Following the trend of trade mark applications, the design applications before the EUIPO have risen to a record level, as reported by the Marques blog. Most applications come from China, Germany, Italy, the United States, and France, respectively. 

Design patents are hard to get, hard to defend even if you do get them, and hard to recover. These beliefs are commonplace in the literature and often invoked without citation. These are a few of the claims a recent article from PatentlyO tackled while defending design patents - the US-counterpart for design rights.

Patents

After a long period of changes and constitutional challenges, the Unitary Patent Court (UPC) seems to be finally taking off. The Kluwer Patent Blog informed that the Administrative Committee of the Unified Patent Court has been inaugurated this week, replacing the preparatory committee. 

Also on the topic, the Legal-Patent blog posted a comment on the Protocol on the provisional application of the Agreement on a Unified Patent Court (PAP), which is currently in force, and the possibility of the  UPC to materialise in 2022.

Trade marks

Legal-Patent blog reported on a recent CJEU decision that confirmed the rejection of the trade mark application of a famous lip balm case, based on a lack of sufficient distinctive character for 3D trade marks. Our GuestKat Anastasiia Kyrylenko also commented on the decision here. 

Miscellaneous

The Comparative Patent Remedies blog reported that EU challenged China at the WTO to defend its high-tech sector after Chinese courts issued decisions – known as 'anti-suit injunctions' – to exert pressure on EU companies with high-tech patents and to prevent them from rightfully protecting their technologies. 

FOSS Patents published a comment on the difference of prices charged by certain apps for consumers according to their location, and why competition authorities should investigate further these practices.

Schwimmer Legal blog summarised a decision from the 9th Circuit that affirmed in part and reversed in part the district court’s preliminary injunction prohibiting a company from selling shoes that allegedly infringe and dilute two famous trade marks by one of the biggest shoe companies.