News & Reports
A European provisional application? Be careful what you wish for
Calls for a European provisional patent application are not new. A 2002 European Commission communication recorded strong support from large industry, while academic respondents also attached considerable importance to the idea.
A European electronic priority document? Absurdly elaborate, surprisingly useful
A priority document answers two deceptively simple questions: when was an application filed, and what did it contain on that date? For decades, the answer travelled on paper.
Serial Non-Use Challenges to Famous Foreign Trade Marks in Russia
Russian courts are increasingly looking beyond a claimant's formal evidence of market interest.
Closing the Gap: A Reform Blueprint for Addressing Bad-Faith Trademark Registration in Thailand
Thailand’s first-to-file trademark system has a serious vulnerability: it lacks both an explicit mechanism for refusing bad-faith registrations and any means of invalidating them in court after the five-year limitation period has expired.
Recent Turkish Court of Cassation Ruling on the Distinctiveness and Descriptiveness of a 3D Trademark Application Involving a Whisky Glass Shape
The registration of 3D trademarks is ever challenging in Türkiye, as in many other jurisdictions due to the high threshold applied in assessing their distinctiveness and descriptiveness.
UAE’s New Accelerated Patent Grant Programme: A Faster Patent Grant—or Simply a Smarter Examination Process?
"Accelerated Patent Grant." At first glance, the name suggests one thing: a faster route to obtaining a patent in the UAE.