Region: Europe

An appeal court has ruled against a care services company that sought protection for the red hearts in its logo. The court found that a red heart is a common symbol, popularly used in various contexts, and its use in marketing does not represent a particularly creative effort. Protection, in the sense of exclusivity, cannot therefore be claimed for it.

13 February 2008

The High Court has held that Karen Millen had a valid unregistered Community design right in a top and two shirts, and that copying by Dunnes Stores infringed these protected rights. The court ordered Dunnes to stop selling the infringing goods, to deliver all remaining stock and to account for profits from these products.

13 February 2008

Croatia has now acceded to the revised European Patent Convention, the latest in a long line of initiatives designed to modernise the country’s patent regime. Next on the agenda is the introduction of an appeal system and initiatives to make the Board of Appeal an independent body. However, a lack of trained IP personnel could make this particularly challenging.

06 February 2008

The Patents Act 1995 has been amended and the new version is expected to come into force during the first half of 2008. The new act would allow patent applications, though not claims, to be submitted in English, making the Netherlands among the first countries in Europe to depart from having a national language requirement for national patents.

06 February 2008

The Supreme Court has ruled that a disputed performance based on folk tradition was insufficiently original to qualify for copyright protection. The court stated that it was not desirable for an interpretation of a folk tradition that does not add anything substantially new to be subject to copyright protection as this would entail a monopolisation of folk tradition.

30 January 2008

A new agreement between the Italian Patent and Trademark Office and the European Patent Office suggests that Italian patent applications could soon be subject to prior art searches. Although some of the details remain unclear, it is hoped that this initiative will make patent protection for new innovations more attractive and give Italian patents a higher presumption of validity than in the past.

30 January 2008

An appeal court has issued a significant ruling in the <em>Lipitor Case</em>. The court not only held that a patent specification by Pfizer was insufficiently clear to be valid, but also found that Ranbaxy had not infringed three other Pfizer patents for intermediate compounds, since Ranbaxy was importing only the finished products and not the intermediates.

09 January 2008

In <i>Bestseller A/S vs. Coop Danmark A/S and Natex of Scandinavia A/S</i>, the Supreme Court agreed with the Maritime and Commercial Court that the t-shirts were not protected by copyright but enjoyed protection as unregistered Community design. However, it went on to find that Coop and Natex should not have known about Bestseller’s designs when importing the t-shirts to Denmark.

02 January 2008

In <i>Scanomat A/S vs. Restaurationsaktieselskabet Dag Hammarskjölds Allé af 18/8-2004</i>, the Maritime and Commercial Court did not find that Scanomat had proven either to have suffered any loss or any market disturbance by the infringing use of Dag H. Irrespective of the testimony by an expert witness that comparable royalty rates in the franchise business range from 12-15% of the revenue, the court awarded compensation with DKK 300,000 (about EUR 40,000) corresponding to approx 5% of the revenue of Dag H during the minimum period of infringement.

01 January 2008

In <i>United Parcel Service of America Inc. vs. Data4u by Jan Normand Andersen</i>, the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court found that Data4u did not have a creditable interest in maintaining registration of the inactive domain name ups.dk whereas United Parcel Service clearly had a need in using the domain name.

01 January 2008