EU

Of course every business should undertake trademark clearance searching before launching a brand, but not every small or start-up business understands why – until they receive a cease and desist letter demanding that they change their branding. Vanessa Harrow offers some advice.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) held its 66th Annual General Meeting in Montreal earlier this month. Trademark Attorney Laurence Rivière provides a summary of the hot topics under discussion.

In Pharmadom v EUIPO, the EU General Court ruled out likelihood of confusion between MediWell and Well and Well. Florence Chapin outlines the ruling.

Trademark owners with prior rights can oppose the registration of confusingly similar trademarks on the grounds of visual, phonetic and/or conceptual similarities. But, what is meant by conceptual similarity, and how is it established?

Domain names play an important role in the sales and marketing activity of any organisation, but it’s all too easy to overlook the IP implications of registering and managing online channels. We set out points to consider when seeking to align domain name registrations with trademark rights.

A recent ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) found that designer clothing business G-Star is not entitled to copyright protection for its ‘ARC’ and ‘ROWDY’ clothing designs.

The EU has agreed a further extension to 31 January 2020 with the option for the UK to leave earlier if the Prime Minister can secure support for the withdrawal deal. Does this mean a no-deal Brexit is now off the table?

When it comes to celebrity tattoos, the story is always who's got one and where – but what about the artist who created the design? Alastair Rawlence redresses the balance.

With Halloween ‘creeping’ up on us, we’ve rounded up some ‘trick-y’ and ‘sweet’ case law updates to get us in the mood for the upcoming spooky festivities.

In September 2019, it was announced that Israel, Samoa and Vietnam deposited instruments of accession to the international design system at WIPO. Last year, Canada, Belize and San Marino also joined.

Integrating the GDPR into the daily life of a business is a far from obvious matter. Developing employees’ awareness of the GDPR and training them to apply it to their daily work is a key element of the process. Anca Draganescu-Pinawin explains why.

Applications for non-traditional trademarks, such as sounds, smells and motion marks, make up only a small percentage of annual trademark applications in the EU. However, their importance is beginning to grow.