EU

The EU has agreed a further extension to 31 January 2020 with the option for the UK to leave earlier if the Prime Minister can secure support for the withdrawal deal. Does this mean a no-deal Brexit is now off the table?

When it comes to celebrity tattoos, the story is always who's got one and where – but what about the artist who created the design? We redress the balance.

With Halloween ‘creeping’ up on us, we’ve rounded up some ‘trick-y’ and ‘sweet’ case law updates to get us in the mood for the upcoming spooky festivities.

In September 2019, it was announced that Israel, Samoa and Vietnam deposited instruments of accession to the international design system at WIPO. Last year, Canada, Belize and San Marino also joined.

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 the process. Anca Draganescu-Pinawin explains why.

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 to grow. 

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.

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 Hemelrijk explains.

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 grow. Casper Hemelrijk offers advice on creating an effective protection strategy.

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 early could have a negative impact on validity, as Casper Hemelrijk explains.

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 revoked its EU word mark for ‘MC’. Casper Hemelrijk outlines the ruling.

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 were not sufficiently ‘clear and precise’, and therefore not able to function as trademarks.