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The Second Board of Appeal of the European IP Office (EUIPO) recently issued a decision confirming the refusal to register an emoji trademark representing ‘I Love You’. The EUIPO had refused to register the pictogram on the basis that it was unable to fulfil the essential function of a trademark, namely to indicate the origin of the products and/or services of a company.
Trademark availability and clearance checks are a vital part of the brand development process. Mona Asgari explains how to build a strong IP foundation for brand development from identifying IP assets to trademark clearance searching.
Domain names are a valuable commercial asset for many companies and an important element of their IP portfolios. However, protecting domain name rights requires knowledge of completely different enforcement systems, such as the WIPO UDRP.
Disclosing an invention before filing a patent, whether by accident or design, may lead to any subsequent patent application being rejected. Adrien Metivet sets out the dangers and consequences of uncontrolled invention disclosure.
Tracking and recording decisions relating to new trademarks and branding is a vital but often overlooked part of the IP management process. In the first article of our new series on brand development, Vanessa Harrow explains why and offers a practical guide on where to start.
For supplementary protection certificates (SPCs) to be filed in the EU, they must be based on a basic patent. Lise Luciani discusses this condition in the context of a recent French ruling.
EUIPO's cancellation of the MINISO trademark based on a copyright registration underlines that a trademark registration can be cancelled for infringing other IP rights, not simply registered trademarks, says Valerie Annan.
Trademark renewals must be instructed in a timely manner to ensure compliance with relevant deadlines and formalities. To facilitate this process for our clients, Novagraaf has added a new ‘reminder’ function for unsent instructions to the renewals module of its IP portal EasyIP.