Changes in Indian trademark law

india-flagThe Controller of Patents, Designs and Trademarks in India published a draft regarding some amendments in the Indian trademark law.  Some of the most interesting and important changes which are proposed are as follow:

  • The proposal suggests 100% increase of almost all fees related to trademark registration in India. Additional 10% extra will be payable in case of paper filing.
  • Affidavits for real use of the filed trademark will be mandatory.
  • The Registrar will have the right to decide whether a trademark is well-known or not and to maintain a list with such kind of marks as well as to remove some of them in case of errors in the process of proving their status.
  • According to the proposal sound marks will be proper for registration in India in the future.

More information can be found here.

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The UK database for patents has been added to Patentscope

WIPO reports about the news that the UK database for patent has been added to international database Patenscope. This will give access to 2,8 million patent files from UK dating from as far back as 1782. By this way Patentscope will provide information for more than 48 million patent files from 40 countirs around the world.

More information here.

Adidas sues American company based on its well-known mark

WIPR reports about a new lawsuit this time against the US retailer Forever 21 initiated by ADIDAS based on the fact that the US company sells children’s jumpers that have stripes on the shoulders and arms, resembling the three-stripes trademark owned by Adidas.
According to the German company that is a violation of its well-known figurative mark which has been used in the United States for many years.
The use of the mark by Forever 21 may create confusion in consumers about the manufacturing sourceAdidas claimed.
This is not the first time when Adidas filed a lawsuit for its trademark. We expect the 
decision of the court in Oregon.

USPTO invalidates an important Apple’s design patent

The US Patent and Trademark Office invalidated the patent for design № D618,677 owned by Apple.

This patent concerns the appearance of the surface of a smart phone device which is used by Apple in a lawsuit against Samsung.
In this case the Korean company was sanctioned by the US court with an amount of about 900 million. dollars, which was subsequently reduced to about 548 million dollars.
The grounds for invalidation of the patent is the presence of earlier similar designs owned by various manufacturers of smart phones, such as LG, Samsung and others.
Apple is expected to appeal this USPTO decision as it is important for the outcome of the appeal of the main lawsuit.

Source: WIPR. 

Algeria joins the Madrid Protocol

WIPO reports about the accession of Algeria to the Madrid Protocol for international registration of trademarks. The Protocol will enter into force for the country on 31.10.2015.
Algeria was the last country, part of The Madrid system, which wasn’t sign the Protocol. From now on, all international registrations of marks will be exclusively governed by the Madrid Protocol. As a result, the filing and management of international registrations will be simplified for users.
More information here.

Tutorials for handling with PatentScope

WIPO published video tutorials about PatentScope database. The presented information gives explanation about the way in which the database works in particular:
– Introduction;
– Browsing option;
– Simple search;
– Field combination;
– Advance search;
– Search result list;
More information can be found here.