Suppose that you want to register a trademark that identifies a source of goods or services for your business.  What if the trademark is immoral or scandalous?  Should you register your scandalous trademark with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office?  The answer may be YES! In Matal v. Tam, 582 U.S. ___ (2017), the U.S. Supreme Court decided that the disparagement clause violated the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment.  The U.S. Supreme Court…

As outlined in art. 1247 of the Russian Civil Code, any applicant may choose one of the options how to be represented before Rospatent: directly, or by a Russian patent attorney, or by another representative (e.g., attorney-at-law) The list is significantly shortened for foreign applicants: under art. 1247 (2) of the Civil Code, foreign citizens and legal entities may be represented before Rospatent only by Russian patent attorneys, unless otherwise envisaged by an international treaty.…

Are apples different from pears? Or are they both just fruit? Or, as cockney rhyming slang would have it, are they stairs? These are the questions (excepting the last one) that the distinguished judges of the Court of Justice of the European Communities (CJEU) have been gr-apple-ing with in the recent case of Pear Technologies v EUIPO – Apple [2019] EUECJ T-215/17. Aside from offering opportunities for highly amusing wordplay, this recent decision includes some…

On 26 February 2019, the Hellenic Copyright Organization (Greek acronym: “OPI”) launched a new online service for “electronic timestamping” of all types of works. The service, which can be accessed at www.timestamp.gr/en , claims to offer the opportunity to creators, both amateurs and professionals, to easily get certified proof of existence of their work at a specific time, in order to be prepared to prove the priority of their rights of intellectual property or related…

Recent amendments to the PBR Act have strengthened PBR rights and have aligned aspects of PBR with other intellectual property laws in Australia. This article summarises the changes. The Intellectual Property Laws Amendment (Productivity Commission Response Part 1 and Other Measures) Act 2018 (Cth) (Amending Act) received Royal Assent on 24 August 2018 and makes significant changes to the Plant Breeder’s Rights Act 1994 (Cth) (PBR Act). The most recent changes to the PBR Act came into effect on…

There is a popular vintage Harley Davidson t-shirt that says “Tough Guys Finish First.”  That may be true.  But, sometimes, to finish first, one does not need more tough guys; one needs more lawyers, as a crime-related matter involving the Mongols Motor Cycle Club has recently shown.  So today we thought that we would use Michael Corleone’s observation as the title of our discussion of how creative intellectual property lawyering has impacted that…