Trademarks

We are halfway through the year 2022. Covid-19 is not yet eradicated and the armed conflict in Ukraine promises to shake economies globally. How are applicants from China facing this scenario? Will there be a slowdown in the expansion of their trademarks?

Through this study, we will verify the main trends in registration since the beginning of the year in the European Union region (EU trademark applications and national trademark applications) by Chinese applicants.

Total numbers of trademarks

Organized by the Pharmaceutical Trade Marks Group, PTMG Conferences bring together IP and Pharmaceutical professionals and cover a wide range of topics regarding trademarks in the pharmaceutical industry and other related subjects.

This year, Inventa proudly sponsors the PTMG Autumn Conference “PTMG on the road again - Trademarks Back to the Future”, held in the hometown of Inventa's headquarters, Lisbon.

Tiago Reis Nobre and Vitor Palmela Fidalgo continue to follow the event closely, which also marks the 100th Annual PTMG Conference.

San Francisco (USA) hosted the 2022 edition of the AIPPI World Conference on 10-13 September. Organised by the AIPPI, the event brought together IP profissionals to discuss, share and exchange insights on various areas of IP.

Inventa joined the event being represented by Daniel Reis Nobre, Tiago Reis Nobre and Vitor Palmela Fidalgo, where they had the opportunity to share some of the latest news about IP in Europe and Africa.

Next year the congress will take place in Istanbul (Turkey).

Although the religious texts do not refer to Intellectual Property (IP), religions are connected to IP.

In a more evident way, religions’ influence on IP ranges from discussing and approving IP laws to registering and using trademarks. In a less obvious way, we observed a displacement of religion in trademarks, through consumerism. Like religions, well-known brands, such as Coca-Cola and McDonald’s, became ideological structures that shape our ways of being and doing, filling the void left by the withdrawal of the main religions of a partially desacralized world.

The commercial relationships between China and the African continent began as early as the 2nd century BC, having expanded in the 7th century following the development of maritime routes. Trade between China and Africa has expanded since then and China became, in the 21st century, Africa’s first economic partner.

The exchanges between the two regions concern trade, investment, and finance and it is widely acknowledged that China is a major contributor to the economic and social development of the African continent.

On May 26, 2022, the South African Supreme Court of Appeal issued a decision in a case involving two tobacco manufacturers, Open Horizon and Carnilinx.

Open Horizon filed a lawsuit against Carnilinx for infringement of its ‘Pacific’ trademarks (with several variants) for tobacco products and cigarettes, on the grounds that the competitor, which was trading the same products under the ‘Atlantic’ (with several variants) trademarks, was infringing its trademark rights and because there was unfair competition.

Inventa has been contributing to updating several chapters related to African jurisdictions in the Manual of Industrial Property (also known as The Brown Book), published every year by Wolters Kluwer International Group.

As usual, the contribution of Inventa outlines the procedures and laws involved in filing applications for patents, trademarks or designs specifically in ARIPO, OAPI, Somalia, South Sudan, Madagascar, DR Congo, Seychelles, Zambia, Malawi, Gambia, Kenya, Rwanda, Ghana, Liberia, Libya, and Sierra Leone.

In the past decade we have been seeing a rise on marketing and sale of products containing Cannabidiol (more commonly referred to as CBD), which is an active compound that derives from the marijuana plant.

We are proud to see Inventa recognized once again in the "Trademark Prosecution" (Leading Firm), "Patent Prosecution" (Leading Firm) and "

At a ceremony held in the Embassy of Cape Verde in Geneva, the Minister of Energy, Trade and Industry of Cape Verde, Alexandre Monteiro, deposited the instruments of Accession to the Lusaka Agreement, Banjul Protocol, Harare Protocol, Swakopmund Protocol, and Arusha Protocol with the ARIPO Director General on 14 July 2022.