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  • Tackling counterfeiters: Luxury brands must be enforcement ready

    5 March 2024

    Mariana Köpf, Withers & Rogers attorney at law based in our Munich office, has given her thoughts to Brands Journal about how luxury brands must be enforcement ready to tackle counterfeiters. High-profile court cases such as that between Christian Louboutin and Amazon in 2022, has given clarity to brand owners about who is liable when […]

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  • The UPC is continuing its upward trajectory

    28 February 2024

    Almost nine months after launch, the Unified Patent Court has received around 250 actions, an average of nearly 28 actions per-month. Compared to January, the UPC has seen an uptake in infringement actions (with an additional 18 compared to last month) and an increasing number of counterclaims for revocation (an additional 40 compared to last […]

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  • Reduced EPO fees for ‘micro entities’

    26 February 2024

    From 1 April 2024 the European Patent Office are introducing reduced fees for smaller and less experienced patent filers at the EPO. The new scheme offers a 30% fee reduction on a variety of EPO fees for ‘micro entities’ who have filed fewer than 5 European patents in the last 5 years. The applicable ‘micro […]

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  • Victoria & Lawrence Osborne v Louis Vuitton Malletier, 0/0026/24, 16 January 2024

    12 February 2024

    Yet another David v Goliath trade mark dispute before the UKIPO with David coming out on top. The UKIPO delivers another lesson to big brands on the pitfalls of being overzealous in their trade mark enforcement strategy before the UKIPO. It also brings to mind Zara’s failed attempt to oppose a UK trade mark application […]

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  • The UPC has around 190 actions, almost eight months after launch

    19 January 2024

    Since launching on 1 June 2023, the Unified Patent Court has received around 190 actions. This includes 67 infringement actions, 25 revocation actions, 79 counterclaims for revocation and some applications for provisional measures, applications for preserving evidence and one declaration of non-infringement. The chart below shows each of these as a percentage of the total […]

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  • Clarity on G2/21 from the EPO Board of Appeal in T0116/18

    10 January 2024

    Last year we reported here that the Enlarged Board of Appeal had established in G2/21 new guidance for determining when post‑published evidence can be relied upon to support an inventive step at the EPO.   It was, however, unclear how this guidance would be applied going forward.  The written decision of the Board of Appeal in […]

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