Prosecution

WIPO published the 14th Global Innovation Index (GII) in September. This year’s edition was dedicated to tracking innovation through the covid-19 crisis and explores several key indicators – including trademark-related information – to identify trends in innovation across 132 countries. One of the objectives of this is to assist policymakers to promote creativity and inventiveness.

Madagascar is an island country in East Africa, located in the Indian Ocean. As a result of the island’s long isolation from neighbouring continents, Madagascar is home to various plants and animals found nowhere else on Earth, being therefore considered as a biodiversity hotspot.

This is a new case of applying to register a sound mark which gained notoriety in the news media and, once again, was rejected owing to the absence of a distinctive character – sound marks are eligible for registration, though not all.

Albeit under different arguments, the General Court of the European Union confirmed the decision by the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO), which rejected the application by the company Ardagh Metal Beverage Holdings GmbH & Co. KG.

As per Article 139 of Cape Verde’s Trademark Law, a trademark may consist of a “sign or an arrangement of signs capable of being represented graphically, particularly words, including personal names, designs, letters, numerals, sounds, the shape of goods or of their packaging, as long as they are capable of distinguishing the products or services of one company from those of other companies”.

Starting on 1st January 2022, applicants of the ARIPO system will be able to designate Seychelles in their patent and design applications. The President of Seychelles, Wavel Ramkalawan, signed the instrument of accession to the Harare Protocol on 26th August 2021.

The Chinese organizations have been investing in several European markets, and an effective protection by means of the patent system is comprised in the strategy of said organizations. Regarding protection of intellectual assets by means of patents, filing a patent application before the European Patent Office is a common approach to have patents in force in several European countries. The EPO is the regional Patent Office, which covers 38 member states, two extension states and 4 validation states, wherein some of this later group is geographically located outside Europe.

The worldwide success of African music hits can lead to mixed feelings: happiness over its long-deserved recognition, but also concern that the artists will not get their dues.

By early 2019, amapiano, a style of house music that emerged in South Africa in 2012, had taken over the radio and clubs of South African townships and made stars of artists such as DJ Stokie, Junior Taurus, MFR Souls, Mr JazziQ and Josiah De Disciple, and Kabza De Small.

The Device for the Autonomous Bootstrapping of Unified Sentience (DABUS) case dates back to August 2019, when a team of academics from the University of Surrey in the UK filed two patent applications in the UK Intellectual Property Office (UKIPO), the European Property Office (EPO) and the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), for inventions developed by artificial intelligence (AI).

Intellectual property

At first glance, registering a trademark internationally may appear a simple task for companies seeking to protect their mark in various countries. However, entrepreneurs should have some prior knowledge and take care in defining the strategy for internationalizing their trademark registrations.

International Trademark – Madrid Protocol

The simplest way of filing an international application is by submitting an international application under the aegis of the Madrid Protocol, managed by the World Intellectual Property Organization.