INTRODUCTION The purpose of the present article is a brief and general outline of the new legal framework in Greece about the state aid scheme for the production of audiovisual works in Greece based on the incentive of a cash rebate of the 25% of the eligible costs of the production incurred within the Greek … Continue Reading
Recently Rospatent officially launched a service for fast-track registration of trademarks and patents. The fast-track option has become available for those applicants who ordered and payed an official trademark search report in Rospatent in respect of all 45 Nice classes. The official fee for this service is EUR 1 500 (RUR 94 400), the term is 10 … Continue Reading
First Witch: When shall we three meet again/In thunder, lightning, or in rain? Second Witch: When the hurlyburly’s done,/When the battle’s lost and won. Third Witch: That will be ere the set of sun. *** ALL: Fair is foul, and foul is fair:/Hover through the fog and filthy air. [MacBeth, Act 1, Scene 2] … Continue Reading
Nowadays, intellectual property rights constitute very important assets of the companies. Therefore, in order to avoid conflicts and uncertainty, Greek legislation offers specific provisions concerning the ownership of inventions, designs and the copyright on a work created in the course of an employment relationship. These provisions could be of interest of any company operating in … Continue Reading
bkp partners Martin Reinisch and Georg Fellner have obtained a favorable judgment by an Austrian Appellate Court for bkp client Spirits International (SPI Group) confirming the latter’s rights in the iconic Stolichnaya and Moskovskaya trademarks in Austria. The favorable judgment has been rendered in a lengthy, complex court proceeding which is the Austrian part of … Continue Reading
Summary In its decision no 1589/2017 the Greek Supreme Court upheld the appeal brought by the Greek company “DPH” against the Dutch company “P”. The Supreme Court held that the Court of Appeals’ decision, which had upheld definitely the lawsuit of “P” against “DPH” for breach of “P”’s essential patents, was wrong in finding they … Continue Reading
Introduction From Bullseye to Mastermind and from The Chase to Eggheads, it is undeniable that the public love a TV game show. Who (in the UK) doesn’t remember Judith Keppel sensationally becoming the first winner of Who Wants to be a Millionaire? A total of 14.9 million UK viewers (that is about a quarter of … Continue Reading
The protection of copyright from infringements taking place via the Internet has been in Greece until today extremely inefficient and time-consuming. Legal experts and copyright holders hope that this situation will alter soon. On July 2017, a new Copyright Law 4481/2017 was adopted amending the existing Copyright Law 2121/1993. The new Law provides dispositions aiming … Continue Reading
On September 27, 2017, the Moscow Region Commercial Court published a significant decision in a patent dispute between Novartis AG, Swiss originator, and Nativa LLC, Russian generic producer (case No. A41-85807/2016). Under the auspices of the case, Novartis AG filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Nativa LLC claiming that its active patent on «Tyrosine kinase … Continue Reading
Introduction The Collective Management Organisations in Greece are subject to the legal framework of the Law 2121/1993, as amended recently by Law 4481/2017 regarding the collective management of copyright and related rights, thereby the Greek legislation was harmonised with the Directive 2014/26/EU. In this article we aim to focus on one aspect of the new … Continue Reading
On July 11, 2017 the Civil Disputes Judicial Board of Russian Supreme Court published a long-awaited Ruling in case No. 53-KG17-12. Under the merits of the case, in 2016 the charity fund for helping children with oncohematological and other serious diseases “Podari Jizn” (CF “Podari Jizn”) filed a lawsuit against a copycat, non-profit charity fund «Podari … Continue Reading
Readers of this blog may well be familiar with the regional exhaustion rule which applies to IP rights in the EU, including (for the time being) the UK. Under this rule, IP rights can be exhausted where they are put on the market with the consent of the proprietor in one part of the EU, … Continue Reading
The German Federal Court of Justice (Bundesgerichtshof) with its decision X 2r 33/10, announced on August 21, 2012, rejects claims for infringement of MPEG-2 video coding patents by a Greek DVD manufacturer: The DVD, as such, is NOT a means of infringement of the patent claim in dispute. On August 21, 2012 the German Federal … Continue Reading
On June 1, 2016, the mandatory pre-trial procedure came into force. On May 26, 2017 the State Duma approved in the second reading amendments to the current pre-trial procedure. Under the amendments, the pre-trial procedure extends only to the monetary disputes. The amendments (art. 1252 of the Russian Civil Code) also directly prescribe that the pre-trial procedure … Continue Reading
It is undeniable that the relation of the Greek state with the television stations has always been turbulent, and the legal status regarding these stations has always been uncertain. Law 1866/1989 regulated for the first time the grant of a license for the establishment and operation of non-state stations, but without a tender procedure. This … Continue Reading
EU Regulation no. 2015/2424, entered into force on March 23, 2016, introduced a number of changes to the European trademark regime. Among them, the amended regulation provides for the abolition of the graphic representation requirement. This implies that, as of October 1, 2017, signs may be represented in any suitable form, using the available technology, … Continue Reading
BOTTOM LINE It remains to be seen what will happen after the GDPR becomes effective on May 25, 2018. The GDPR compliance roadmap can be helpful for any organization that collects or processes personal data, whether or not an organization in or outside of the EU believes it is subject to the GDPR. With just … Continue Reading
In its meeting of April 27, 2017, the Russian Government has approved the Bill “On approval of the Protocol amending the Agreement on trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights” proposed by the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Russian Ministry of economic development and trade, and endorsed its further introduction to the State Duma1. … Continue Reading
There is a popular television show in the United States called American Pickers, which follow the adventures of antique and collectible “pickers” Mike Wolfe and Frank Fritz. Wolfe and Fritz travel around in a van with the logo Antique Archeology to buy, or “pick,” various items for resale, for clients, or for their own personal … Continue Reading
In mid-February, the Russian Intellectual Property Court issued an interesting decision, in which it indicated when filmmakers have to obtain a copyright owner’s consent for use of a movie prop. Under the auspices of the case, Pan Press Publisher filed a lawsuit against Ren-TV TV Channel and AN-film Production Company claiming that its book cover … Continue Reading
In Denmark, certain rules must be observed, if a company wants to turn to customers by electronic means to promote or to sell products and services. Basically, the company must have the customers consent before the company can send out marketing. If there is no consent marketing through electronic means as text messages or e-mail … Continue Reading
On December 13, 2016, the Russian Constitutional Court has published its Ruling on constitutionality of certain articles of Civil Code regulating the legal nature of compensation as an IP remedy. The constitutional review was requested by the Altai Arbitrazh Court. While considering numerous IP cases (Kvadro-Publishins v. Lubivaya, Aeroplan v. Vashkevich), the court found that … Continue Reading
In August 2016 Rospatent has initiated a public discussion on provisional applications and licensing of unregistered patents in Russia. In Rospatent’s view, provisional applications are designed to establish an effective 12-month term, within which applicants may file their non-provisional (“ordinary”) applications. In order to register a provisional application an applicant should disclose a technical decision … Continue Reading
