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

    http://ipkitten.blogspot.com/2025/03/never-too-late-if-you-missed-ipkat-last_19.html Missed the Week’s IP Insights? Here’s a Quick Recap! Patents Rose Hughes discussed the importance of meticulous documentation in securing and defending intellectual property rights, highlighting how detailed records can be crucial in legal disputes. Rose Hughes examined the Unified Patent Court’s (UPC) evolving approach to added matter and... Continue reading

     
  • [GuestPost] Mending fences or moving goalposts? The fine line of patent amendments in Ensygnia v Shell

    http://ipkitten.blogspot.com/2025/03/guestpost-mending-fences-or-moving.html The IPKat has received and is pleased to host the following guest contribution by Katfriend Adanna Onah on a recent UK Court of Appeal decision concerning patent amendments and the limits of post-grant claim scope adjustments. Here’s what Adanna writes: The Court of Appeal’s decision in Ensygnia IP Ltd... Continue reading

     
  • General Court: Conceptual identity in different languages insufficient for likelihood of confusion

    http://ipkitten.blogspot.com/2025/03/general-court-conceptual-identity-in.html The EU has 24 official languages and there is a significant number of people who speak further languages like Russian. This raises the question if signs are confusingly similar where one is the translation of the other. In a recent judgment, the General Court dealt with trade marks sharing... Continue reading

     
  • Morley’s: Is the average consumer tired, hungry and intoxicated?

    http://ipkitten.blogspot.com/2025/03/morleys-is-average-consumer-tired.html Copilot (prompt as Alt Text in image) In a judgment handed down, appropriately, on Friday last week, the Court of Appeal dismissed an appeal by various proprietors of fast food outlets against a finding that they had infringed the trade mark rights of another, more famous, fast food franchise.... Continue reading

     
  • GAME OF THRONES disqualifies Game of Döner from trade mark

    http://ipkitten.blogspot.com/2025/03/game-of-thrones-disqualifies-game-of.html A few days ago, the Opposition Division of the EU Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) issued a decision concerning the reputation of the trade mark “GAME OF THRONES”, owned by Home Box Office, Inc. (HBO), and whether the registration of “GAME OF DÖNER” should be refused under Article 8(5) of... Continue reading

     
  • EU moves one step closer to gene editing regulation

    http://ipkitten.blogspot.com/2025/03/eu-moves-one-step-closer-to-gene.html In a vote earlier today, the EU reached an important milestone on the road to a new regulation for new genomic techniques (NGT) for plants. After some changes to the EU Parliament’s proposed “patent ban”, the member states’ representatives endorsed the Council’s negotiating mandate. The Polish Presidency can now start negotiations with... Continue reading

     
  • Late night BABEK – UK court upholds validity of kebab trade mark

    http://ipkitten.blogspot.com/2025/03/late-night-babek-uk-court-upholds.html The UK’s Intellectual Property Enterprise Court (IPEC) has declined an attempt by a defendant (Iceland Foods) to invalidate a trade mark owned by the claimant (Babek) in an application for summary judgment. The judgment carefully considers some of the issues around how trade marks are described and presented on... Continue reading

     
  • The UPC’s approach to added matter and functional claims (Abbott v. Sibio Technology, UPC_CoA_382/2024)

    http://ipkitten.blogspot.com/2025/03/the-upcs-approach-to-added-matter-and.html The recent decision in Abbott v Sibio Technology (UPC_CoA_382/2024) offers valuable insights into the UPC’s approach to the interpretation of functional claim language and the ever-contentious topic of added matter. On both issues, the UPC broadly appears to have followed the EPO approach. However, the lack of any explicit indication... Continue reading

     
  • One trade mark to rule them all? LORD OF THE RINGS loses opposition in Australia

    http://ipkitten.blogspot.com/2025/03/one-trade-mark-to-rule-them-all-lord-of.html Normally a decision of a delegate of the Australian Trade Marks Registrar wouldn’t attract much attention from the IPKat. But the subject matter of this decision has piqued some international interest: last week, an Australian fast food business successfully defended itself against an opposition brought by the owners of... Continue reading

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

    http://ipkitten.blogspot.com/2025/03/never-too-late-if-you-missed-ipkat-last_74.html Another eventful week in the IP world has passed—here’s what to keep in mind! A Kat awaiting weekly IP updates Designs Katfriend Henning Hartwig reviewed the interpretation of Articles 6 and 14 of Regulation 6/2002 (“CDR”). The Committee for Design Law of the German Association for Intellectual Property Law has recently... Continue reading