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

Could have benefitted from the public holidays a week earlier? Not to worry, here's the summary of what you missed during the longer work week.

Trade Marks

It's the time of year when fluffy creatures of a
non-Kat variety get all the attention.
Image from Pixabay.

Katfriend Hans Eriksson shared insights into how the intellectual property strategy of high-end watchmakers had responded to the trend of customization or personalization of luxury timepieces. He provides some timely reflections on the recent trade mark infringement cases in the US and Europe.

Marcel Pemsel discussed the recent EUIPO Board of Appeal decision, which concerned the opposition from car company, Hyundai, to the registration of a trade mark that allegedly resembled several of its trade marks. However, the Board upheld the rejection of the opposition, affirming that the signs in question were dissimilar. It was irrelevant that the contested trade mark may have been developed based on the word ‘hyundai’ because the public would still have to engage in a highly imaginative cognitive process in order to decipher the sign.

Patents

Rose Hughes reported on the first substantive decision of the UPC Court of Appeal, which reversed the preliminary injunction in 10x Genomics v NanoString. The decision indicates that commentators might have been a little premature in observing that the UPC was establishing itself as a patentee-friendly court. We will await the decisions in the parallel EPO proceedings in order to compare their approaches to patent validity.

Rose Hughes also discussed the recent case (T 0447/22) about how much the description of a patent should be used to interpret the claims. In the case, the Board of Appeal noted that the description cannot be used as a repository of definitions that can be used to change the meaning of otherwise clear claim language.

Copyright

Katfriend Caroline Theunis reflected on the copyright dispute behind Taylor Swift's decision to re-record her earlier albums after becoming dissatisfied with the way the record label was using its economic rights. She discusses the stronger bargaining power that authors and performers have under EU law, as well as the role of moral rights in protecting authors.

Hayleigh Bosher reviewed the book, Copyright and the Court of Justice of the European Union (2nd edition) by Eleonora Rosati. This book was voted by readers as the winner of the IPKat’s Book of the Year Award. Readers can purchase the book with a 30% discount with the code ALAUTHC4 on the OUP website.