Litigation

The famous court case held between Christian Louboutin and Van Haren Schoenen, in the District Court of The Hague, Netherlands, in which the Louboutin’s red sole validity as a Benelux trademark is being questioned, has suffered a setback.

The District Court of The Hague requested for a preliminary ruling from CJEU and Maciej Szpunar, the Advocate General, has delivered the opinion on the case on June 22, 2017.

Computer programs appear on Article 52(2)(c) of the European Patent Convention (EPC), of 1973 as a subject matter excluded from the meaning of invention. However, in 2005, the European Patent Organization (EPO) had already granted over thirty thousand patents related to computer programs and, currently, computer-implemented inventions are the object of approximately 35% of European patent applications.

Kristen Visbal’s sculpture, “Fearless Girl”, was unveiled in Manhattan's Financial District, New York, as an advertisement for an index fund which comprises gender diverse companies that have a higher percentage of women among their senior leadership. The “fearless girl” was settled in front of the famous Wall Street “Bull” of the sculptor Arturo di Modica.

“Fearless Girl” strategical position is, without question, the reason of its power’s dimension. The sculpture of the girl facing the “bull” quickly became a symbol of entrepreneurship and women’s strength.

The company TM25 Holding B.V., which trademark G-STAR RAW belongs to, among others, took legal action in the Portuguese courts, demanding the condemnation of Tiffosi’s owners by copyright infringement. This violation rests on the commercialization of many jeans, t-shirts and sweatshirts that are identical to previous models commercialized by G-STAR RAW.

Vítor Palmela Fidalgo, Director of the Intellectual Property department at Inventa International, publishes an article in the prestigious german magazine Gewerblicher Rechtsschutz und Urheberrecht, Internationaler Teil (GRUR Int), entitled “Challenges in Protecting Pharmaceutical Trademarks”, where some of the main juridical questions that come up with trademark protection which designate pharmaceutical products are addressed.

Link: https://goo.gl/9BJzNU

Past January 31st, a letter was sent to the European Union Commission President Jean Claude Juncker by big companies such as Apple, Adidas, Bayer, Channel, Hero, Lego, L’oréal, Moët Hennessy, Nike, Philips or Coca Cola, amongst others, with a call for action to modernize the Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive (IPRED).

The case reports back October 2011 when GS Media provided hyperlinks from its website Geenstijl.nl to external websites that hosted unpublished photographs of Dutch TV celebrity and hostess that were due in the next issue of the Playboy magazine. Sanoma Media Netherlands BV was the publisher of Playboy in the Netherlands.

Before announcing the Apple Watch, Apple, inc. tried to register the trademark iWatch in several jurisdictions, with trademarks applications dated from 2013 and 2014. In some jurisdictions the application was successful and the trademark was registered and ready for use. In other cases, Apple wasn't so lucky. The most famous case is the trademark application of the iWatch filed at the United Kingdom Intellectual Property Office (UKIPO), numbered 00003047484, which was rejected after an opposition was filed in the name of Swatch.

A case that is currently attracting a lot of media attention has been the case of Pirate Joe vs Trader Joe’s. The first is a Canadian retailer, located in Vancouver, who resells products belonging to the second party at a 30 to 40% increased price, without any authorization to use the similar trademark; the second party is a large company based on Monrovia, California, United States, who sells various food products for almost 60 years.

Past August 30, 2016, a trademark opposition system has come into effect in Mexico. The amendment to the Mexican IP Law was published in the Official Gazette June 1, 2016 and a new opposition has come alive, where before there was none. While the opposition system is most certainly welcome, taking into account that it will make it easier – and cheaper – for opponents to oppose published trademarks that might be deemed too similar to their previous trademarks, the new opposition system has some local peculiarities that might make it a strange beast for most foreign applicants.