Posts in International

Innovation in artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming industries and everyday life. Given its growing importance, many jurisdictions, including Brazil, the United States, and Europe, are establishing specific guidelines to legally protect AI inventions. Although each region seeks to protect innovation, the approaches differ significantly, particularly regarding patentability requirements, inventiveness, and technical disclosure.

Consumer device giant Apple has earned trillions of dollars and cornered near monopoly levels of market share by implementing a corporate strategy focused on gaming proceedings in the federal judiciary and administrative agencies with the intent to devalue patent rights. That is the major takeaway from a recently launched campaign raising awareness into the alleged growing chokehold that Apple has gained over the global innovation industry over the past two decades, and the resulting stagnation in the cellular mobile communications ecosystem.

The European Commission yesterday announced that it is withdrawing a controversial proposal for regulating standard essential patents (SEPs). The Commission officially announced the proposal in April 2023, although it was leaked well before that. The draft rules were purportedly meant to repair a system that “has suffered from a lack of transparency, predictability, and lengthy disputes and litigation.” Communication on standard-essential patents.

Lord Justice Jacob noted the temptation to treat patent-eligible subject matter like an elephant: “you know it when you see it, but you can’t describe it in words.” He went on, however, writing that “[a]ctually we do not think that is right – there are likely to be real differences depending on what the right approach is. Billions (euros, pounds or dollars) turn on it.” These comments could not have been more correct. Huge outcomes depend on the approach taken to determine patent-eligible subject matter.

Generative AI is one of the most transformative technologies of our time, reshaping the way businesses create, innovate, and compete. As organizations integrate AI into their operations, they must navigate an increasingly dynamic business environment, driven by technological advancements and evolving market demands.

The U.S. Senate held a nomination hearing to vet Donald Trump’s pick for Secretary of Commerce, Howard Lutnick, this past week. While much of the hearing focused on issues outside of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), Lutnick touched on several key points relevant to the intellectual property system.

When companies come together to set a standard – for universally adopted technologies like Bluetooth or WiFi – they are allowed to cooperate together as competitors and define a market. As a tradeoff, these rivals must each promise to license patents encompassing technology necessary to the standard, namely the notorious standard essential patents (SEPs), to all who wish to practice the standard. That promise to license may be for free, like Bluetooth, or under fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) conditions, like WiFi. Without such a promise, the monopoly power inherent in a patent encompassing a globally agreed-upon technology would enable unchecked monopoly power over the entire market for access to the standard.

In recent years, the pharmaceutical industry has undergone significant changes in the focus of its innovation, research and development efforts. Historically, oncology and immunology were the primary targets for pharmaceutical companies, with most resources and capital allocated to developing new technologies in these areas.

The evolution of content distribution has been both a boon and a bane for the entertainment industry. From physical formats like CDs and DVDs to digital streaming over satellite, fiber-optic networks, 5G, and Wi-Fi, the rapid technological advancements have brought unmatched convenience to viewers. The shift feels seamless: connect a smart TV to Wi-Fi, and the days of waiting for the cable guy are over. For television show producers, however, the transition has come at a steep cost.

On January 20, the United Kingdom’s Court of Appeal issued a ruling in Thatchers Cider Co. Ltd. v. Aldi Stores Ltd. expected to have major impacts on the availability of lookalike products in British supermarkets. In Thatchers, the Court of Appeal reversed a ruling by the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court (IPEC) dismissing trademark infringement claims filed by Thatchers over competing brands of cloudy lemon cider sold by German supermarket chain Aldi.

Last week, patent data tracking firm IFI CLAIMS published its annual rankings of the Top 50 U.S. Patent Assignees and the Top 10 Fastest Growing Technologies of 2024, providing a snapshot of the world’s most innovative companies and rapidly advancing tech sectors by analyzing U.S. patent grants totals over the last calendar year. Although U.S. patent grants increased overall last year, pointing to the strength of the domestic market, foreign economic rival China continued to make significant gains in acquiring U.S. patents.

In June 2023, as is widely known, more than 50 years of efforts to create a pan-European patent jurisdiction were finally successful and the Unified Patent Court opened its doors. Historically, there were two traditions within Europe, namely, the German principle of separation (often wrongly called also “bifurcation”), according to which infringement actions and nullity actions were separate and handled at different courts, and the otherwise prevailing principle of unity, according to which infringement and validity are examined in the same proceedings. With the creation of the Unified Patent Court, it was believed that a middle ground had been achieved between the two concepts, but the data shows that a “counterclaim gap” may be emerging.

The International Trademark Association (INTA) announced today that it has filed an amicus brief in a referral to the Grand Board of Appeal of the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) that asks for clarification on registering human faces as trademarks. INTA urged the Grand Board to confirm that “signs consisting of photorealistic facial images of people, including famous ones, are not per se excluded from trademark protection.”

Slogans play a crucial role in branding, serving as memorable and important expressions of a company’s identity. In Brazil, slogans are eligible for trademark registration, but their acceptance has historically been limited by strict requirements for distinctiveness and functionality. With the Brazilian Patent and Trademark Office (BPTO) recently updating its interpretation of the law, the landscape for protecting slogans is evolving, offering new opportunities for brand owners.

Sustainability, while not a new concept, has gained significant traction in recent times. However, amidst the overwhelming amount of data available globally on this topic, extracting meaningful insights for a data-driven strategy has become increasingly challenging. Numerous corporations have made voluntary commitments to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, which is a commendable step toward decarbonizing their respective industries. Nonetheless, monitoring the actual progress made through these commitments presents a formidable challenge.