Insights

Integrating the GDPR into the daily life of a business is a far from obvious matter. Developing employees’ awareness of the GDPR and training them to apply it to their daily work is a key element of t...

On 27 September, yet another country deposited its instrument of accession; Malaysia. This means that Malaysia can be designated in an international trademark registration (IR) as of 27 December 2019.

Applications for non-traditional trademarks, such as sounds, smells and motion marks, make up only a small percentage of annual trademark applications in the EU. However, their importance is beginning...

Quand il s’agit de tatouages, la question qui revient est de savoir qui en a un et ou - mais qu’en est-il de l’artiste qui en a créé le design ? Alastair Rawlence rétablit l'équilibre sur cette épineu...

It’s one of the 1970’s most recognisable guitar riffs, but the opening of Led Zeppelin’s ‘Stairway to Heaven’ is becoming almost as well known for another reason: the accusation of copyright theft by ...

The English Premier League revealed this month that it had seized more than 160,000 counterfeit items, worth more than £5 million, in the past year.

Graffiti and, more broadly, street art was once considered more of a nuisance than an art form. While the circumstances of its creation may be legally ambiguous, street art has undoubted creative and ...

A recent ruling by the Court of Justice of the EU has broadened the options for taking action against online trademark infringement, by giving trademark owners a wider choice of court, as Casper Hemel...

With an estimated three billion people using smartphones and other electronic handheld devices worldwide, the importance of obtaining IP protection for graphical user interfaces (GUIs) is only set to ...

Selon Chantal Koller, il est essentiel de revoir la place de la propriété intellectuelle au sein même des réunions de dirigeants d’entreprises afin de changer de paradigme et de faire passer la percep...

Pennsylvania State University (‘Penn State’) has filed suit against Florida-based Sports Beer Brewing Company for trademark infringement over its use of the university’s name, brand and sporting masco...

An application to register Uncle Sam as a figurative trademark has been refused by the USPTO on the grounds of its iconic character and cultural significance.

We all know that a recognisable and trusted brand name is a powerful asset with clear benefits in terms of customer recognition, loyalty and goodwill, reputation and market share. The challenge lies i...

Commercial success for pharmaceutical companies is highly dependent on the acquisition and enforcement of IP rights. While speed to filing is important in most instances, registering a trademark too e...

Surrealist 60s British music group ‘The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band' is fighting to protect its name and logo after they were registered as a trademark by a third-party media company.

It looks as if the year is going from bad to worse for McDonald’s trademark portfolio. After the fast food chain’s EU registration for ‘BIG MAC’ was cancelled in January, the EUIPO has now partially r...

The Court of Justice of the EU dealt the final blow to Red Bull’s trademark registration yesterday (29 July), after it agreed with the EU General Court’s 2017 decision that the colour combinations wer...

English football club Sheffield Wednesday has objected to the registration of ‘WAWAW’, an acronym used by fans on social media to signify ‘We’re All Wednesday, Aren’t We’.

Such has been the success of the comedy movie Fack ju Göthe, its production company sought to register the title as a word mark. Casper Hemelrijk examines the public policy and morality objections wit...

The trade in counterfeit alcohol threatens the safety of those that consume it, as well as the reputation of the rightful brand owner. In this article, we assess the threat and set out tools for prote...