If you like having options in obtaining patent rights faster, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) has been eager to please in the last decade. Expediting a patent application can be highly desirable since the average pendency from filing to issuance is about three years on average, and can be even longer in certain technology areas or if an appeal to the Patent Trial & Appeal Board is required ...
There was a fascinating article on the late Wally Olins (brand guru and co-founder of the firm Wolff Olins) in The Economist recently. The piece brings home just how much Olins’s thinking has shaped trade mark law and practice over recent years. Here are just a few examples: ‘G.K. Chesterton got it half right: when people stop believing in God, they don’t believe in nothing. They believe in brands ...
On May 7, the Fourth Circuit held that the Supreme Court’s decision in Janus Capital Group, Inc. v. First Derivative Traders, 131 S. Ct. 2296 (2011), did not apply in the context of a criminal prosecution for a violation of Rule 10b-5. See Prousalis v. Moore, No. 13-6814, 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 8584 (May 7, 2014) ...
Our clients from outside the province of Quebec often ask us the following questions: what are the linguistic labelling requirements in Canada, and particularly Quebec? There are several statutes and regulations governing labelling in Quebec and Canada. The following is a summary of some of the major points relating to the use of the French language ...
Under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (the “FCPA”), it is unlawful for companies to bribe or make corrupt payments to officials of foreign governments or of any “instrumentality” thereof. However, what entities are included as instrumentalities of a foreign government is not defined in the FCPA and there has been intense disagreement over the breadth of the term ...
In a surprise announcement on 21 March 2014, the Zambian government with immediate effect abolished exchange control regulations introduced in 2012 and 2013 in an attempt to halt the rapid devaluation of the Kwacha. When the Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) came to power in Zambia in 1991, the new government’s priorities were the restoration of economic future growth and employment through liberalising the economy and allowing market forces a greater role ...
On 14 February 2014 the South African Department of Trade & Industry (DTI) gave notice of its intention to prohibit the use of a large number of European food and drinks names in terms of section 15 of the Merchandise Marks Act (MMA) - confusingly the notice also makes reference to section 13 of the MMA, a section that no longer exists ...
On 24 March 2014, the Competition Tribunal (the “Tribunal”) issued its long-awaited decision in The Competition Commission and South African Breweries and Others. The original complaint against South African Breweries (“SAB”) and its Appointed Distributors” (“ADs") was lodged with the Competition Commission (the “Commission”) nearly ten years ago, referred to the Tribunal nearly seven years ago, and has been the subject of various interlocutory disputes ever since ...
On May 4, 2014 the Commission for Compensation and Royalties of the Israeli Patent Authority (the "Commission") rendered a decision relating to an employee's request to receive royalties for service inventions (the "Decision"). The Decision reduces the uncertainty that had surrounded the nature of an employee’s right to receive royalties for service inventions, and provides important guidelines for examining employee royalty waivers in agreements between employers and employees ...
New Regulations Governing Consumer Claims and Language Use in Consumer Information The Croatian Consumer Protection Act has recently updated how customer claims are to be handled. The receipt of complaints must now be confirmed in writing without delay ...
A shareholder of a major public hotel corporation recently filed a derivative suit against several of the company’s officers and directors alleging they violated their fiduciary duties, wasted corporate assets, and were unjustly enriched in connection with three separate data breaches between 2008 and 2010 ...
The Federal Circuit today overruled a federal district judge and held that Oracle’s API computer source code qualifies for copyright protection, potentially breathing new life into Oracle’s billion-dollar lawsuit against Google. Oracle America, Inc. v. Google Inc., Case No. 13-1021 (Fed. Cir. May 9, 2014) ...
Prompted by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit’s decision in National Association of Manufacturers, et al. v. SEC, et al. (D.C. Cir. April 14, 2014), which held a portion of the conflict minerals rule (the “Rule”) invalid on First Amendment grounds, the Division of Corporation Finance of the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) issued updated guidance on April 29, 2014 relating to upcoming Form SD filing obligations ...
Accessing the lucrative market of Macau is on every foreign investor’s radar. Though challenges regarding corporate structure and registration, real estate, employment, litigation and licensing appear intimidating, a good understanding of local practice ensures a smooth and solid transaction. The Chinese gaming enclave of Macau has experienced another boom last year, far beyond analysts’ wildest dreams ...
Even if the parties determine that a proposed transaction is not subject to the requirements of the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act (the “HSR Act”),1 the parties should take note of the recent activities and current views of agency staff regarding investigations of non-reportable transactions. Almost 20 percent of merger investigations opened by the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) between 2009 and 2013 related to non-reportable transactions ...
In a pair of unanimous decisions issued today, the United States Supreme Court has substantially lowered the bar for the prevailing party’s recovery of attorneys’ fees under § 285 of the Patent Act. 35 U.S.C. § 285 provides that a prevailing party may recover attorneys’ fees in an “exceptional case ...
Stories of trade marks becoming generic - which may have the result that trade mark registrations become vulnerable to cancellation - are rare. Yet there have been a number of examples recently. In March 2014, there was a decision of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) that dealt with a claim that a trade mark registration for Kornspitz should be cancelled because the word had become generic ...
The Industrial Property Bill that was passed on the 22nd August 2013 was accepted into Ugandan law on the 6th January 2014. This Bill brings about various changes in the law protecting inventions, creations and designs in Uganda, and is intended to support development in the private sector and promote private investment ...
Clients unfamiliar with patent prosecution are often surprised to learn that few patent applications receive a first-action allowance, or FAA. There are even rankings of law firms that receive the most FAAs each year. But what does an FAA signify? Is it a cause to celebrate, or to conduct a post-mortem? The answer is, of course, “it depends ...
The D.C. Circuit recently expanded the scope of the False Claims Act’s first-to-file defense. See United States ex rel. Shea v. Cellco Partnership, __ F.3d __, 2014 WL 1294687 (D.C. Cir. April 11, 2014). The court concluded that this defense – which bars FCA suits based on facts related to a “pending action” – applies even after the first action is dismissed ...
Although a federal court recently ruled that the United States Federal Trade Commission (the “FTC”) has the authority to regulate data security practices, a clinical testing laboratory is arguing that the FTC’s regulatory authority does not extend to entities covered by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (“HIPAA”) ...
On April 10, Deputy Attorney General James Cole, White House senior adviser Rand Beers, the head of the U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division and the chairwoman of the Federal Trade Commission announced the release of the antitrust agencies’ “Antitrust Policy Statement on Sharing of Cybersecurity Information ...
The New Year brought good news for Romanian intellectual property counselors. The Romanian State Office for Inventions and Trademarks (SOIT) introduced the trademark E-filing system ...
