Never Too Late: If you missed the IPKat last week!

If you've been too busy sleeping off the New Year's celebrations, here's the summary of the IP news you missed last week.

Patents and Plant Varieties

Evidently, this Kat's new year's resolution was
to take more naps! (Image from Pixabay)

Henry P. Yang analysed the recent judgment in Optis v Apple Trial E (one of six related trials), which focuses on the terms of a FRAND licence and the conduct of the parties in the negotiations.

Marcel Pemsel reviewed the new book by Pierre Heuzé, written in French, entitled L'épuisement des droits de propriété intellectuelle sur un matériel biologique en droit suisse [Exhaustion of intellectual property rights in biological material under Swiss law]. The book explores the protections over biological material and their exhaustion under patent and plant variety protection laws.

Trade Marks 

Anna Maria Stein outlined the decision from the General Court which held that an EU figurative trade mark representing a lion’s head encircled by rings forming a chain for use in the fashion sector had a low level of distinctiveness, and dismissed the opposition.

Marcel Pemsel discussed a recent case about when a license agreement can be recorded when a new EU trade mark owner has not consented to the registration.

Alessandro Cerri analysed the recent EU Board of Appeal decision about the trade mark application for 'SUSSEX ROYAL', which was opposed by a Danish brewing and beverage company that owned trade marks for the words 'ROYAL' and 'ROYAL UNIBREW'. The Board found that there was no likelihood of confusion, and remitted the case to the Opposition Division.

Copyright

Nedim Malovic alerted readers to a recently-initiated case in Sweden that will apply the so-called 'best seller' provision from Article 20 DSM Directive. We await updates on the outcome in due course.

Anastasiia Kyrylenko discussed a recent case in Germany which held that the slogan ‘Geimpft, gechipt, entwurmt’ (German for ‘Vaccinated, chipped, dewormed’) did not meet the originality standard and was therefore not eligible for copyright protection.

Tian Lu explained a recent AI-generated image copyright case in China, which was initiated after the re-posting of an image entitled ‘The Spring Breeze Brings Tenderness’.