After a battle of two years, eBay, the online auction site, lost in a French trade mark case and has been ordered by the Paris Commercial Court to pay 40 million Euros to Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy (the LVMH group).
The LVMH group claimed that eBay had damaged the LVMH reputation by selling counterfeit products in its website. The court accepted their claim and pointed out that not being able to keep counterfeit goods off its site indicate that eBay has 'serious faults' in the way it runs the site.
Another argument which was also accepted by the court and claimed by the LVMH group related to perfumes eBay sells on its site.
The LVMH group claimed that even the sell of authentic goods on the site should not be allowed, as selling genuine goods harm and infringe LVMH's exclusive
The Taipei High Administrative Court of Taiwan, ruled in favor of a Taiwanese sports wear company by the name of 'Lutong Enterprise Corporation" ("Lutong") and cancelled the registered trademark "three stripes" of Adidas in Taiwan.
Adidas's lawsuit in Taiwan followed the decision of the Intellectual Property Office of Taiwan in 2003 to cancel its "three stripes" registered trademark due to similarities between its trademark to Lutong trademark.
After Adidas lost the trial in 2006, she filed another appeal to the Supreme Administrative Court which remanded the case to the Taipei High Administrative Court for reinvestigation in April 2008.
Adidas claim was that she was the first one to use the "three stripes" logo as trademark about 30 to 40 years ago, and that this logo became its
An Israeli company by the name of AEROTEL LTD lost its right to a patent for telephone systems in a ruling made by the high court of justice chancery division (patents court) of England ("the High Court") on May 23, 2008.
The Israeli company sued WaveCrest (a pre-paid calling card company) for infringement of its patent, which was granted to her on 1985 on a new way of making pre-paid phone calls from any telephone (The Patent relates basically to a method of making pre-paid telephone calls which is available for use from any telephone and to hardware for doing so). Although this patent was more than 20 years old and therefore expired, the sides litigated over alleged infringements when the patent was in force.
The High Court ruled that the idea behind the patent was not new and was
Posted by: ifat ara in Israel on
Apr 29, 2008
In an Israeli civil wrong lawsuit an Internet forum operator (the defendant) had been accused of libel and was obliged to pay a reimbursement of 100,000 NIS (~29,000$) to the plaintiff, a municipal veterinarian.
According to the Israeli Magistrates Court, the Internet forum owner injured the reputation and status of the plaintiff in the community by giving stage to different offensive defamations which ascribed the plaintiff deeds of corruptions and bride.
The court held that the defendant is responsible in virtue of its capacity as an Internet forum operator and accused her of being negligent for allowing the defaming publications and not removing them from its website.
In its decision the court took in to consideration the scope of those injuring publications as well as the long period
Posted by: ifat ara in China on
Apr 27, 2008
In two different cases a Courthouse in China ruled in favor of two big Italian corporations: the famous prestige brand manufacturer "Gucci" and the confectionery producer, "Ferrero Rocher", and set a high fine on two local Chinese manufactures that copied some of the products those companies manufacture.
Ferrero Rocher spokesman, Alessandro Cagli, said to the china daily that this is an encouraging step and that they will inspect the enforcement of this decision closely.
In a country where cheap imitations can be found almost anywhere, the importance of those rulings becomes even more significant to IP owners.
This is another step China takes as part of its continuing progress trying to level up with the rest of the world in the field of IP protection.
Such decisions are certainly
Posted by: ifat ara in Europe on
Mar 09, 2008
As of the beginning of next month (April 1, 2008) most of the fees for European patents and patent applications will increase.
Among many others, some of the fees that are about to be increased are the claims fees, the renewal fees and the search and examination fees.
With regard to the calims fees, the number of fee-free claims will increase from 10 to 15 but the fee for each excess claim over 15 will be more expensive than what it used to be for each excess claim over 10.
The fee increase for excess claims will cause applicants to reduce the number of claims and accordingly will take off the work burden from the EPO Examiners.
More information about the fee changes and other
Posted by: ifat ara in United Kingdom on
Feb 12, 2008
According to a recent report of the bbc.co.uk site Paul McGuinness, manager of rock band U2, calls internet service providers (ISPs) to fight against illegal music downloads.
McGuinness accuses record labels and the governments in creating "thieves' charter" for repressing ISPs behavior according to which they can not be held responsible for what passes along their networks.
McGuinness claimed that the same legal actions taken in case a certain magazine advertises a stolen cars add should be taken in cases of illegal music downloads and the enforcement in both of those cases should be similar.
Posted by: ifat ara in Israel on
Jan 30, 2008
An interresting issue came up recently when the Israeli trademark commissioner ruled to cancel a trademark due to non use, despite arguments by the trademark holder arguing that the special circumstances in trade rule shall apply.
On January 21, 2008 the Israeli patent commissioner (hereinafter: the commissioner) ruled in favor of a company named "VAPUM LTD." and cancelled the trademark:" ZIP" ( T.M. number 101663, hereinafter: "the trademark") under clause 41 to the trademarks ordinance 1974 (hereinafter: "the ordinance").
The trademark was registered under class 25 which includes: Clothing, footwear and head covers and excluding Ti - shirts, Sport shirts, Sweat shirts Vests and belts with buckles.
Clause 41(A) to the ordinance determines that one can submit a request for cancellation of a registered trademark arguing there was no "Bona Fide" (good faith) intent to use a specific trademark and that in fact there was no "Bona Fide"
Posted by: ifat ara in Untagged on
Jan 24, 2008
Posted by: ifat ara in USPTO, United States on
Jan 24, 2008
Current 37 CFR 1.63 sets forth the requirements for an oath or declaration filed in a nonprovisional patent application. According to this section a person making the oath or declaration must state when acknowledging the duty of disclosure and especially that they acknowledge their duty to disclose to the office all information known to the person to be "
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