Never too late: if you missed the IPKat last week

We made it through another cloudy January and have February to look forward.  But if you wanted to look back at the final week of January, here is what you missed.

Patents

Benjamin unpacked a patent royalties dispute between the University of Oxford and a student inventor, where the English High Court explained which categories of students should be treated as consumers for the purposes of consumer protection law, and why.

Annsley then explored the consequentials hearing (which takes place after the judgement is given) following the royalties dispute between Oxford and the student inventor. The High Court dealt with the royalty payments, costs, confidentiality of certain documents after trial, and permission to appeal.

Rose reported that the EPO has launched a user consultation on the implementation of Board of Appeal oral proceedings by videoconference. This was initially a pandemic measure, but now it appears to be here to stay, even if we are no longer in a “general emergency”.

Rose also looked at a Board of Appeal decision that considered whether patients in a clinical trial of a tablet formulation conducted before patent filing could be considered members of the public, and whether their participation in the clinical trial constituted prior public use of the formulation.

Trade marks

Marcel examined a General Court decision which arguably expanded the concept of invalidating trade marks for bad faith. A mark can be invalidated for bad faith where companies act in a coordinated way to try to prevent trade marks from being part of the insolvency assets of their owner, this by having the owner surrender or not renew the marks and then registering them themselves.
Geographical indications

Anastasia analysed parallels between the treatment of Germany under the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 (which contained a provision protecting foreign GIs under foreign law within German territory) and how stronger countries (or alliances of countries) treat weaker ones in modern trade agreements.

Chijioke discussed the recent article “The legal construction of geographical indications in Africa” by Titilayo Adebola, concerning how African nations should develop their GI protections in order to leverage the benefits of GIs and to avoid the pitfalls of GI protection that may not be appreciated.