As June draws to a close and the midsummer heat takes hold, it is all too easy to let the wave of recent intellectual property updates pass you by. If you were busy wrapping up end-of-month files or stepping away to enjoy the long summer evenings rather than tracking the blog, don't worry—we have you covered.
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| A Kat caught napping through the midsummer heatwave, letting a heavy stack of recent IP updates wait for a cooler evening... |
Patents
Rose Hughes analysed the Board of Appeal decision in T 0592/24 regarding Novartis's blockbuster breast cancer drug combination of ribociclib and letrozole, highlighting how robust preclinical data within the application as filed can successfully establish sufficiency and inventive step, allowing subsequent clinical trial readouts to be safely relied upon as post-published evidence under the G 2/21 framework.
Claire Gregg outlined critical legislative amendments to New Zealand’s patent practice effective 5 June 2026, which mandate that all newly filed divisional applications, even those originating from parent applications under the 1953 Act, must now meet the stricter validity, worldwide novelty, and disclosure standards of the 2013 Act.
Trademarks
Marcel Pemsel reported on the General Court’s judgment in Lami Packaging v EUIPO – Tetra Laval Holdings (T‑104/25), which declared Tetra Pak’s iconic 3D octagonal carton shape invalid after ruling that features reducing material weight and optimizing capacity constitute functional technical results under Article 7(1)(e)(ii) EUTMR.
Brexit
Oliver Fairhurst marked the 10-year anniversary of the Brexit vote with part one of a retrospective series, detailing the statutory transition from "retained EU law" to "assimilated law" and the resulting cross-border jurisdictional hurdles for UK-EU litigation.
Oliver Fairhurst delivered part two of his decade-after-Brexit review, tracking substantive developments and regulatory drift across copyright originality, SkyKick bad faith trade mark specifications, separate UK design filings, and the UK's position outside the new Unified Patent Court (UPC) system.
Intermediary Liability & Digital Law
Eleonora Rosati analysed the CJEU Grand Chamber’s landmark ruling in WebGroup/Coyote (C-188/24 and C-190/24), which clarified that an information society service provider exercising pre-determined algorithmic control over user-uploaded content is disqualified from the hosting safe harbour. Eleonora also highlighted the Court's confirmation that the prohibition of general monitoring only applies to providers who actually qualify for these safe harbour immunities.
Marcel Pemsel reported on a major preliminary injunction granted by the District Court of Munich I against Google (26 O 869/26), holding the search giant directly liable for defamatory and untrue statements generated independently by its "Google AI Overview" summary format.
IP News and Events
Image credit: Gemini AI
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