For the Patent and Trail Appeal Board (“PTAB”), the PTAB allows a petition for inter parties review (“IPR”) to request cancellation of claims in a U.S. patent. For an inter parties review of a patent, the PTAB institutes review and determines if claims of a patent are unpatentable. Can the PTAB cancel claims based on indefiniteness during an IPR? The answer is NO!
In federal court, the validity of a U.S. patent may be challenged on the basis of failure to comply with any requirement of 35 U.S.C. § 112, which includes indefiniteness in the claims. In 1980, the U.S. Congress established “reexamination” of a U.S. patent as to patentability of claims based on certain prior art typically known as “ex parte reexamination”. Subsequently, the U.S. Congress established “inter parties reexamination” that gave third parties the opportunity to participate in the reexamination process based on certain prior art. Continue Reading
Although in Greece, in principle, no permit is required for filming in public open-air spaces, there are few exceptions to the above rule that could make the situation a little bit complex. These exceptions are mostly linked with the venue where the filming is going to take place, regardless of whether we are talking about a film, a commercial video, a documentary or news reports and of whether the journalists and/or crew represent foreign or local media and producers. The present article aims to give useful and practical insight on the above issues due to the fact that there have been recent legislation amendments.
On March 31, 2020, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) issued a notice concerning the waiver of certain trademark-related timing deadlines pursuant to Section 12004 of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (the CARES Act).
Intellectual property rights are – by definition – monopolistic. How, then, can researchers, charities and NGOs collaborate with business in the development of new technologies to control and eradicate COVID-19?
In the past several years, the food and beverage space has seen an explosion of innovation—alternative meat products, plant-based dairy and protein alternatives, CBD- and collagen-infused everything, and functional foods and beverages and containing everything from pre/pro/post-biotics to nootropic and adaptogenic herbs, just to name a few. And many of these innovations have led to wildly successful products with household brand recognition (think: Impossible Foods and Vital Proteins).
In its unanimous April 23, 2020 opinion in Romag Fasteners v. Fossil, Inc., the Supreme Court made clear once and for all that a successful trademark plaintiff is not required to establish that the defendant’s infringement was willful to be entitled to an award of the infringer’s profits. In other words, profits may be disgorged for less than willful infringement of a trademark.
Nowadays the sphere of healthcare is becoming one of the mostly discussed because of a mass spread of the coronavirus pandemic (also COVID-19). Confirmed cases of COVID-19 around the world have passed more than a 2.4 million. As the disease is continuing to surge the World Health Organization is warning that there are no specific vaccines or treatments for COVID-19 as for today. However, there are many ongoing clinical trials evaluating potential treatments and developing drugs conducted by different laboratories in developed countries.
Generally speaking, “trademark parody fair use” is a defense where an unauthorized trademark user claims that the use should be shielded from liability because of public interests such as freedom of speech. In Taiwan, while there were court judgments that recognized “trademark parody fair use”, there is no clear language for such defense in the Trademark Act and the determination of “trademark parody fair use” remains unsettled in judicial practice. In a recent trademark infringement case, the Intellectual Property Court made a good demonstration of how to approach this issue.
A few weeks back, as remote working and social distancing were becoming the order of the day (and interesting phrase, given what quickly became the norm 
Canada’s COVID-19 Emergency Response Act came into force on March 25, 2020. Perhaps overlooked amongst emergency relief, health care and financial effects is Part 12 of the Act which makes changes to the Patent Act.