Posts in Europe

The new European Community Trade Mark Regulation, as approved by Regulation (EU) 2015/2424 of the European Parliament, entered into force on March 23, 2016. Among other amendments, the provisions of Article 28(8) of the new Regulation substantially change the approach to interpretation of ICGS class headings included in the list of goods/services covered by EU trademarks applied for before June 2012. Previously, before June 22, 2012, a trade mark was deemed to be protected in respect of the entire range of ICGS goods and services included in the alphabetical list for that class provided that such trade mark was registered with reference to the heading of the respective ICGS class.

The IP5 is the name given to a forum of the five largest intellectual property offices in the world that was set-up to improve the efficiency of the examination process for patents worldwide. The top five Patent Offices (IP5) have recognized this internationalization phenomenon and many directives have been introduced to facilitate cooperation between the patent offices… For example, the IP5’s Common Citation Document (CCD) application now allows access of up-to-date citation data of all five patent offices.

On 23 June 2016, the British citizens will hold their referendum on the country’s membership in the European Union. Should they vote for the UK to leave the EU (the so-called ‘Brexit’), the new European unitary patent system is likely to collapse before it started… If the UK was to refuse to ratify the European Patent Court Treaty after the exit vote on June 23 2016, the Treaty would also need to be renegotiated so that UK ratification is no longer required for the Treaty’s entry into force. Without such renegotiation, this requirement would only cease to apply when the UK has in fact left the EU.

As the world continues to grow and international trade on a multi-continent level has become the norm, protecting a company’s name is one of the most important things a company can do, regardless of their size or international standing. Due to what has become almost “organic” international growth for most companies, the use of trademarks owned by U.S. Companies within Europe has grown exponentially in the last 5 years. Consequently, the use of distribution licenses across Europe has also expanded massively.

It is no understatement to say that Nikola Tesla is one of the most important inventors of all time. From electricity to radio broadcasts to wireless transmissions, there was no aspect of the technological world during the late 19th century that weren’t somehow touched by Tesla. During his life, Tesla earned 111 U.S. patents and held about 300 patents from countries across the globe. Drones, robotics and wireless power transmission, things that Tesla envisioned, are still being developed today. Without the important contributions of this immigrant inventor, there’s no question that American innovation would have lagged significantly in the early 1900s.

Without immigrants and the influx of knowledge brought by them to our country’s shores, American innovation and the overall economy would look nothing like it does today. The current election cycle, as with many recent ones, has seen a great deal of focus turned towards the issue of immigration reform, with much of the debate centered on 11 million undocumented workers currently in America. But we wanted to take some time to explore how foreigners have been able to contribute to our nation’s spirit of innovation. Surprisingly, we found that some of these inventions encompass products that are about as American as apple pie.

The report noted key areas of strength for the American IP environment, including effective trade secret protection, commitment to international treaties, mechanisms for pharmaceutical-related patent and generally appropriate boundaries set by courts on copyright exceptions. Along with narrowing patentability and weak enforcement against counterfeit products, key weaknesses for the U.S. included ambiguity regarding the obligations of Internet service providers (ISPs) to respond to trademark-holder notices of infringement and the need to speed up information sharing between rights holders and border agents to aid in the identification of infringing goods.

To replace the now-defunct Safe Harbor agreement, last week the European Commission published the first details of its transatlantic Privacy Shield. The Privacy Shield is meant to strengthen obligations on US companies to protect European personal data, and improve regulations regarding data monitoring by US government agencies. With the release of the draft Privacy Shield, many are skeptical that it will ensure proper privacy protection and some believe that it may be challenged after implementation.

The European Patent Office (EPO) announced earlier today that the overall number of European patent applications filed at the EPO rose in 2015 to 160,000. This represents an increase of 4.8% compared with 2014, when the EPO saw a record high 153,000 patent applications filed… Many within the U.S. patent industry are openly talking about protection being better, fairer and more attainable in Europe, and Europe is rapidly becoming a preferred venue for litigating patent disputes. With the unitary patent and European Patent Court on the horizon, the continued self-inflicted wounds being leveled against the patent system in America makes it all but certain that the EPO will continue to experience ever more filings moving forward.

Committee chairman Senator David Vitter (R-LA) began the hearing by speaking about the importance of a strong patent system to small businesses all over America, as well as the importance of those small businesses to the U.S. economy. Vitter remarked that small businesses have provided two-thirds of all net new jobs since the 1970s and they also produce 16.5 times more patents per employee than larger enterprises. Recent legislation causing major changes in the country’s patent system, including the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (AIA), have made it more difficult to enforce patent rights. “It’s essential to remember that many legitimate owners of intellectual property do not manufacture anything but nonetheless have legitimate claims of patent infringement against other parties,” Vitter said. He was also wary of the “staggering rate” of decline in patent value during recent years, stating that during the past four years patent values have dropped by as much as 80 percent.

England isn’t the only part of the world where embryonic gene editing research has been finding a foothold. In early 2015, researchers out of China published a paper reporting experiments in using CRISPR-Cas9 to edit a specific gene in an embryo’s genetic code responsible for a potentially life-threatening blood disorder. The research team found serious obstacles that need to be addressed before CRISPR-Cas9 can be used to edit genetic code in an embryo on a wide scale; these issues include low retention of genetic material and unintended mutations when a Cas9 enzyme misses its target.

Chinese legislators have attempted to enact anti-terror legislation purportedly designed to protect Chinese citizens against terrorist threats. In late December, China passed a law requiring both telecommunications and Internet companies operating in the country to provide decryption, technical interfaces and other assistance to public and state security organizations to conduct investigations of potential terrorist activities. The tech sector has misgivings about Chinese regulations that would force the handing over of sensitive data. Imagine a leak of encryption keys leading Chinese hackers to degrade performance of a foreign tech provider, all in the name of promoting indigenous innovation. That’s a pretty extreme scenario, but one that’s not completely unimaginable considering recent cybersecurity headlines.

Safe harbor in the world of international digital data transfer has been a major topic of discussion in the tech world in recent weeks. Since 1998, data transferred from European citizens to American shores by U.S. tech companies have been regulated by the U.S.- EU safe harbor agreement. Under these rules, American companies have been able to make international data transfers if they can self-certify that they can keep the personal data of European citizens secure to the privacy standards of the European Union, which operates a much different data security regime than is implemented in the United States. These rules have come under the crosshairs of a recent ruling by the European Court of Justice, the EU’s highest court, which has invalidated the safe harbor agreement in light of revelations made by Edward Snowden on the data surveillance tactics of America’s National Security Agency (NSA).

The decision creates significant uncertainty for organizations who rely on Safe Harbor either for their own, internal data transfers, or because they use a service provider which, in turn, relies on Safe Harbor to provide adequacy for its transfers to the US. Alternative methods of addressing data transfers will be needed – such as implementing EU Commission approved data transfer agreements, or obtaining individual consent. Although the decision has invalidated Safe Harbor – with immediate effect – organizations will need to look to the reactions of national data protection authorities to determine how urgently to implement alternative data transfer solutions.

From tech developers trying to take a stand against tech-savvy terrorists to a pair of highly anticipated initial public offerings of stock for tech start-ups, there’s been plenty of news to cover in recent days. We also take a little time to explore research at an American university which has led to the world’s first-ever “freeze ray” laser technology.