Never Too Late: if you missed The IPKat last week

End of autumn spleen

The implementation of Art. 17 of the DSM Directive is currently one of the hottest topics in IP law. Kat Friends Martin Senftleben and Christina Angelopoulous shared their thoughts on the issue, focusing on the importance of the general monitoring ban and on how this prohibition of monitoring should be taken into account in the national implementations of Art. 17. 

Former GuestKat Antonella Gentile reported on the EUIPO’s recent Tertulia on Boards of Appeal Case Law. The cases discussed during the event (and analysed by Antonella in her report) covered issues of trademarks containing names of drugs and terms referring to strains/variants of cannabis plants, conceptual comparison when establishing the likelihood of confusion, and substantial aspects of online evidence. 

The Beijing IP Court has recently published an analysis of cases where trade mark registration was refused under absolute grounds as being “detrimental to socialist morality or mores or having any adverse effect” (Art. 10(8) of the China Trade Mark Law). Special Kat Tian Lu has prepared her comment on this analysis, including a comparison with the EUIPO guidelines and cases cited by the Beijing IP Court. 

Kat Friend Natalie Corthésy offered an analysis of recent IP developments in Jamaica. Natalie discussed the long-awaited Patents and Designs Act, which was adopted in February 2020, but does not yet have a date of entry into force . Jamaica is also planning to ratify the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) by the end of 2020. 

Kat Friend Enrico Bonadio and Luke McDonagh addressed the recent decision by the District Court of the Hague on the patent dispute between Sisvel and Xiaomi. The case, part of a broader pan-European litigation, involveds the treatment of patentsthat have been declared essential for a given standard, but later turn out not to be infringed by devices implementing that standard. 

GuestKat Alex Woolgar followed on with a discussion of Lord Justice Arnold’s recent decisions on confidential information [the first part is available here]. Alex’s second post concerns The Racing Partnership Limited and Ors v Sports Information Services Limited [2020] EWCA Civ 1300. The case involved two companies who collect and distribute data on horse race courses: betting prices offered by bookmakers located at the racecourses and certain data specific to the racecourse on the day of the race. The three-step Coco v AN Clark test was applied to the dispute. 

Kat Friend Michael Edenborough reviewed “European Court Procedure: A Practical Guide”, by Viktor Luszcz. The book, which addresses the functioning of the General Court and of the Court of Justice in the post-Lisbon era, will be relevant for those interested in the general procedural aspects of litigation before the CJEU. At the same time, as Michael observes, the book is less detailed with regards to IP-related procedural aspects. 

GuestKat Léon Dijkman reviewed the “Patents Games in the Global South”, by Amaka Vanni. The book, which considers pharmaceutical patent laws in Brazil, India and Nigeria, is a timely analysis of how intellectual property norms impacts access to medicine in developing countries. 

Eleonora Rosati shared registration details for the annual conference on “Competition Law in the Pharmaceutical Sector”, which will take place on December 1. The IPKat readers will have a special discount (the VIP code is in the post). 

Never Too Late 291 [Week ending November 15] Book review: Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights in Africa | SIPLR Event: IP in the Digital Environment | Autumn fashion law and IP events | [Guest Post] ‘Grand rights’ of great importance: copyright on the big stage 

Never Too Late 290 [Week ending November 8] Interview with the new Chief Executive of the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore | The search for zombie trademarks: a continental EU perspective