Goal Is to Improve Accuracy and Reduce Potentially Invalid Registrations On February 14, 2019, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) issued aNotice of Proposed Rulemaking(“NPRM”) to require foreign domiciled trademark applicants and registrants to be represented by a licensed U.S. attorney at the PTO. The comment period on the NPRM is open until March 18, 2019 ...
At the end of the last year, the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation (the “Supreme Court”) adopted the Ruling dated December 25, 2018 No ...
Senate Bill 273 goes into effect on March 20, 2019, and creates new requirements for Ohio insurance companies, including health insurance plans, to develop and implement specific information security programs to safeguard nonpublic business and personal information. Senate Bill 273 is based upon the National Association of Insurance Commissioners’ Insurance Data Security Model Law (also referred to as "MDL-668") ...
On 10 January 2019, the Indonesian Government enacted GovernmentRegulation No. 1 of 2019 on Export Proceeds from the Exploitation,Management, and/or Processing of Natural Resources (“GR 1/2019”) ...
The Anton Piller order is an extraordinary thing. It’s essentially an evidence-preserving legal mechanism. It allows a party that feels that their rights are being infringed to approach the court as a matter of urgency and without notice to the alleged wrongdoer for an order sanctioning a raid of the premises of the alleged wrongdoer in order to find and preserve evidence that it believes will otherwise be destroyed ...
A recent judgment in a trade mark opposition in Seychelles is worth a look, not only because it involves a major international brand, but because IP judgments are quite rare in certain African countries. The opposition The facts were that a Seychelles company called Intelvision Limited applied to register the trade mark Intelvision (a stylised version of the word together with an antenna logo) for services in class 38 ...
The Mauritian Government announced in its 2018-2019 budget speech major changes to be brought to the Mauritian Financial Services sector which were then confirmed within the enactment of the Finance (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 2018 on 9 August 2018. This was the result of intense pressure in recent years for Mauritius to align itself with global norms and transparency standards ...
What exactly is unlawful competition? Unlawful competition is often lumped together with IP, and indeed there are obvious links: the common law action of passing off (closely related to trade marks) is a species of unlawful competition; and unlawful competition cases often involve technology, trade secrets and the misuse of confidential information, thus potentially bringing them within the scope of patent law and copyright law ...
When a scion of the investment banking world gets into crypto it is probably worth taking notice. JP Morgan Chase, America's largest bank, has just grabbed everyone's attention with the launch of its very own cryptocurrency, the JPM Coin. JP Morgan intends the internally developed crypto asset to be used in its wholesale payment system, which currently sees daily volumes in the region of $6 trillion ...
Introduction The United Arab Emirates (the UAE) promulgated legislation to specifically address the regulation of competition (being Federal Law 4 of 2012, or the Competition Law) several years ago but until recently, it has been the case that the requisite implementing regulations and processes were not in place. This is no longer the case ...
The public rights of access on and over land, enshrined in the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003, have now been around for almost 14 years. They allow all members of the public a responsible right of access on and across land and inland water throughout the country, often informally referred to as the right to roam. Certain parts of land may be excluded from the rights of access under the Act: restrictions may be allowed, for example, due to planned forestry operations ...
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) recently launched a consultation on its proposed guidance on cryptoassets (CP19/3) which can be read in fullhere. The move comes as part of the UK Cryptoasset Taskforce's wider look into the regulation of the cryptoasset market. The consultation follows a report published in October 2018 by the Taskforce, which consists of the Bank of England, HM Treasury and the FCA. Our discussion of that report can be readhere ...
One of the biggest challenges that micro, small and medium enterprises face when trying to settle in and achieve success as profitable businesses is to obtain capital and sources of financing ...
What’s happened? After much media coverage, Cabinet Decision 56 of 2018 (the Decision) has been gazetted which introduces new long term residency visas to, amongst others, the following four categories of persons in the UAE:1. investors;2. entrepreneurs;3. individuals with specialised talents and researchers in various fields of science and knowledge; and4. honours students with promising scientific potential ...
In its decision from February 7, 2019, the Bundeskartellamt prohibited Facebook from the further processing of user data which it has generated from so-called third party sources. In order to make use of these personal data in future, Facebook will need the consent of the data subject as defined by the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). It remains to be seen whether this will be granted by the majority of users. 1 ...
Let us draw your attentionthat Russian legal entities are obliged topossessinformation about their ultimate beneficial owners (hereinafter the “UBO”) in accordance with para.1art. 6.1 of the Federal Law No. 115-FZ “On prevention the legalization (laundering) of proceeds of crime and financing of terrorism” ...
Notwithstanding the optics of a healthy U.S. economy, beneath the surface there are many U.S. companies and consumers that have become casualties of the “trade war” with China. The first salvo in this trade war was fired in January 2018, and was followed by additional shots later in 2018 as the United States imposed punishing tariffs that affect hundreds of billions of dollars of trade with China and the rest of the world ...
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) provides for a significant increase of the maximum possible fine for legal infringements compared to previous data protection legislation. Fines of up to 20 million euros or 4 percent of the worldwide annual turnover, whichever is higher, can be imposed (Art. 83 para. 5 GDPR). Yet, the first few months after the introduction of the GDPR in May 2018 were uneventful in this regard. That is now changing, however ...
On December 28, 2018, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), in partnership with the Health Sector Coordinating Council (HSSC), published the “Health Industry Cybersecurity Practices: Managing Threats and Protecting Patients” (HICP Publication), which is a four-volume publication designed to provide voluntary cybersecurity practices to health care organizations of all types and sizes, ranging from local clinics to large health care systems ...
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has announced it will issue a new Final Rule on January 31, 2019, reversing the order by which the USCIS will select H-1B applications submitted under the statutory/numerical cap and introducing an electronic registration requirement for employers filing H-1B cap-subject petitions. The reverse-selection provisions of the rule will go into effect on April 1, 2019 ...
The US tech giant, Google is fined EUR 50 million by France's data protection regulator, CNIL, for failing to comply with its General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) obligations. This is the biggest GDPR fine yet to be issued by a European regulator and the first time that one of the tech giants has been found in breach with the new regulations that came into force in May 2017 ...
As of 31 December 2018, the Central Registry of Ultimate Beneficial Owners was established within the Serbian Business Registers Agency (the “Registry”), in line with the Law on Ultimate Beneficial Owners (“Official Gazette of the RoS no. 41/2018). In addition, the Ministry of Economy issued guidelines which provide more information on the implementation of certain aspects of this Law (the “Guidelines”) ...
In late November 2018, the Securities and Commodities Authority (SCA), the Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA) of the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) and the Financial Services Regulatory Authority (FSRA) of the Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) announced that they had reached agreement on facilitating the licensing of domestic funds by each authority for promotion across the UAE. This is a potentially significant development ...
On Friday, January 25, 2019, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra’s Office held the fourth of its six public forums in connection with its rulemaking process for the California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”). The purpose of the open forum, which was held in Los Angeles at the Ronald Reagan State Building, was to provide an initial opportunity for the public to participate in the CCPA rulemaking process ...
Last Friday, the Illinois Supreme Court delivered the highly anticipatedRosenbach v. Six Flags Entertainment Corp., 2019 IL 123186, opinion. Businesses and consumers alike watched for the Court’s opinion regarding whether mere technical violations of the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (“BIPA”) gave plaintiffs the requisite standing to seek damages under the statute ...
