Trademarks

Trademark applications in South Sudan started to be accepted by the Ministry of Justice in July of 2014, under the old Sudanese Trademarks Act. 

However, due to a lack of a local trademark law, the Deputy Registrar at the Ministry reversed this process and started to refuse new trademark applications.

Although all trademarks filed to date have been suspended until IP laws come into practice, to contour this, it is now possible to reserve trademarks with the Ministry.

The british entrepreneur, author and motivational speaker, Shed Simove, decided to put out on the market a new dating app, conveniently called Shinder. The author created the online dating platform with the purpose of its users having one single correspondence: Shed Simove himself. 

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

Trump’s well-known slogan “Make America Great Again" was not created by him. This slogan was firstly used in the Ronald Reagan presidential campaign, in 1980.

In the end of December 2012, this slogan came up again in a statement made by Donald Trump, when he was explaining his decision to continue the presidential campaign.

However, the first time Donald Trump used this expression as slogan was on November 7, 2012. Mitt Romney had lost his running against Barack Obama, and Trump felt his moment had come.

With the beginning of a new civil year, several statistical indicators on Intellectual Property are posted about the preceding year, and 2017 was not the exception.

Recently, Tesla applied for a three-stripe trademark to identify its new vehicle, MODEL 3. This trademark received the attention of Adidas who moved to file an opposition against this application based on their previous trademark.

A trademark allows its owner to prevent any third party from exploring the same mark or any that can cause confusion in the consumers’ mind as to the origin of the products or services identified with the trademark.

1 - Exclusive right to use the trademark

The trademark’s registration guarantees that, in a specific territory, no one will be able to offer the same services or products that the trademark’s owner does, using the same name. This fact ensures that the trademark’s owner is the only entity with the right to use and reproduce its trademark, constituting a true legal monopoly.

2 - Advantage over competition

Before the changes resulting from IP Law No. 1/13 of July 28, 2009, trademarks and industrial designs in Burundi were registered for an unlimited period of time.

After the promulgation of the current IP Law, the deadlines for trademarks and industrial designs were officially determined, in which trademarks shall be valid for a period of 10 years from the filing date, with the possibility of indefinite renewals for the same period of time and industrial designs shall be valid for 5 years from the filing date, with the possibility of two renewals of five years each.

The Canada – European Union Trade Agreement (CETA, from Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement) aims to facilitate and reduce barriers to trade, as 98% of the trade tariffs will be removed. The deal was recently ratified by the European Parliament. CETA has several Intellectual Property (IP) related provisions which might affect companies that wish to provide goods across borders and protect their IP assets.

With the new Intellectual Property (IP) Law no. 6769, in force as of January 10th, 2017, there came a few changes to the IP system in Turkey. As of now, the registration of IP assets in Turkey is now faster and more reliable. The main changes consist of the following: