Sound marks that can serve as jingles are difficult to protect in the EU. The registration practice seems inconsistent. Some jingles get registered while others are rejected although they appear to be equally ‘complex’. The relatively short jingle of a public transportation company had been rejected by the European Union Intellectual Property Office (‘EUIPO’) not too long ago (IPKat here). The Board of Appeal of the EUIPO (‘BoA’) recently confirmed the rejection. Background On 15 March 2023, Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe (‘BVG’, the company operating the public transportation system in Berlin ..read more

The UPCKat getting into the spirit of the  proceedings As part of our UPCKat reporting on the latest UPC developments,  the IPKat is kicking off a series of reporting on preliminary injunctions that analyzes the development of preliminary injunction case law from the UPC.  With our guest UPCKat team in the form of UPC advocate and guest UPCKat Agathe Michel-de Cazotte and members from the team at Carpmaels we kick off the first post in the series going back to September 2023 and the Vienna local division.   Over to the team to report o ..read more

Trier, Germany The Katfriends at the Academy of European Law (ERA) in beautiful Trier (Germany) are always busy organizing and running IP courses. Over the next few months, the following will take place and IPKat readers will have an opportunity to enroll with a 25% discount in the registration fees: Summer Course on European Intellectual Property Law Trier, 1-5 July 2024 This course will provide a thorough introduction to European intellectual property law. Key topics covered in the course include: EU and international legal framework IP law after the pandemic crisis Trade marks ..read more

In what is the first referral from the Executive Director of the EU's Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO), the EUIPO's enlarged Board of Appeal (the Grand Board) has been requested to clarify whether a EU Trade Mark (EUTM) application, which is withdrawn during the appeal period following a refusal decision from the EUIPO, can proceed to conversion to a national application.    Background Article 157(4)(l) of the EU Trade Mark Regulation (EUTMR) provides that one of the functions of the Executive Director is to refer questions on points of law to the Gr ..read more

Which language will it be?  The AmeriKat sporting colors (and food) from the EPO's official languages  About 15 years ago, the AmeriKat started her, sometimes, daily IPKat reporting on the unitary patent package. This, even before, the CJEU challenge on language.  Fast forward to 2024 (and skipping over the annus horribilis of 2016), we are nearing the first anniversary of the UPC opening its doors.  Now that we are getting into the pace of the UPC, the IPKat is picking up the pen again to start weekly reporting.  The AmeriKat is not alone this time ..read more

It is now confirmed that there will be a referral to the Enlarged Board of Appeal (EBA) on the correct approach to claim interpretation. The Board of Appeal in T 0439/22 had previously indicated that they were minded to refer a question to the EBA on how much the description should be used to interpret the claims (IPKat). The published minutes of oral proceedings from a hearing in the case last week confirm that the Board of Appeal intends to follow through on this intention.   Case background: Spiralled or gathered? T 0439/22 relates to an appeal of the opposition decision ..read more

The IPKat has received and is pleased to host the following guest post by Katfriends Jakob Plesner Mathiasen and Matilde Helene Bom (both Gorrissen Federspiel) on a recent Danish decision tackling the relationship between trade mark law and freedom of expression. Here’s what they write: Can a trademarked mascot drink, smoke, and spray graffiti under the banner of artistic expression? by Jakob Plesner Mathiasen and Matilde Helene Bom Imagine a young girl donning a long white dress with a blue apron. She has neat, blonde hair styled with an impeccable blue bow. She’s carrying her small, yellow ..read more

When an earlier sign consists of two words and the later mark consists of the same two words but in reversed order, the German Federal Patent Court calls this an ‘anagrammatic sound rotation’ (‘anagrammatische Klangrotation’). The rationale is that consumers are unlikely to remember the order of words due to their imperfect recollection (e.g. case 29 W (pat) 47/16). In two recent decisions, the General Court and the Board of Appeal (‘BoA’) of the European Union Intellectual Property Office (‘EUIPO’) found instead that the inversion of words does not lead a likelihood of confusion when the wo ..read more

If you were flat-out last week and didn't have time to follow the IP news, here's the summary of what you missed. Intellectual Property Generally A Kat that has been flat out. Image from Pixabay. This Kat reviewed the new book, The Elgar Companion to Intellectual Property and the Sustainable Development Goals, edited by Bita Amani, Caroline B. Ncube and Matthew Rimmer. The volume brings together 25 excellent contributions to reflect on the role of intellectual property in the progress of the UN Sustainable Development Goals and achieving a better future for everyone.Trade Marks a ..read more

In a recent judgment (in Czech) which is one of the first of its kind in Europe, the Municipal Court of Prague (the Court) held that an image generated by an AI tool was not capable of being protected by copyright, as it was not authored by a natural person.    Background The claimant in this case, which is anonymised in the Court's judgment, had asked the AI program DALL-E to create an image for the claimant's website. DALL-E is a text-to-image model developed by OpenAI to generate digital images from natural language descriptions, called "prompts." The prompt used by the ..read more