Intellectual Property UK

  • March 31, 2025

    Adidas Refused Broader Protection For Sports Shoe Patent

    European patent officials have rejected a bid by Adidas AG for a broader version of a patent for one of its sports shoe designs but disagreed with a Swiss competitor that the patent should be scrapped entirely.

  • March 31, 2025

    Session Musicians Need Streaming Revenue Fix, Union Says

    The Musicians' Union has pushed the government to give session musicians a share of streaming royalties, noting that a recent increase in upfront studio fees wasn't enough to balance the scales given the streaming industry's gains.

  • March 31, 2025

    LVMH Units Win Glenmorangie, Belvedere Counterfeits Claim

    Two LVMH-owned companies behind Scotch whisky brand Glenmorangie and Polish vodka Belvedere have convinced a court in the Netherlands that a Chinese company infringed their trademarks by importing and storing thousands of counterfeit bottles.

  • March 31, 2025

    Nokia, Amazon End Long-Running Patent Feud With License

    Nokia said Monday that it has inked a patent agreement with Amazon to cover its video technology, marking the end of litigation between the two companies across several continents.

  • March 28, 2025

    Patent Court Likely To Lure Patent Holders With UK IP In Play

    The Unified Patent Court has now doubled down on its authority to hear claims involving U.K. patents, a move that is likely to make the court an even more desirable forum for global infringement actions.

  • March 28, 2025

    VistaJet Escapes VC Fund's Claim Over Investment Deal

    A private jet company owner escaped allegations from a Guernsey venture capital fund that he secretly set up companies to leverage the resources of a business it had invested in, when a London court ruled Friday that the claim came too late.

  • March 28, 2025

    UK Litigation Roundup: Here's What You Missed In London

    This past week in London has seen sparkling winemaker Nyetimber hit a rival distillery with an intellectual property claim, Newcastle United's former owner Mike Ashley target the club's ex-vice president for damages tied to a fraudulent investment, and a real estate agency file a legal claim against law firm Winston & Strawn LLP. Here, Law360 looks at these and other new claims in the U.K.

  • March 28, 2025

    CureVac RNA Vax Patent Survives BioNTech's EU Challenge

    CureVac SE has fended off a challenge from BioNTech SE of its mRNA therapy patent at a European patent authority, paving the way for CureVac to forge ahead with litigation in the companies' home country of Germany accusing BioNTech of infringing its invention.

  • March 28, 2025

    Pharma Co. Sues Ex-VP For Trade Theft To Benefit Rival

    A pharma company has sued its former senior vice president, accusing him of secretly downloading confidential information in order to share it with a rival weeks before he resigned. 

  • March 28, 2025

    MSD Loses Appeal Over Ruling It Broke 'Merck' Branding Ban

    A London appeals court upheld on Friday a ruling that U.S.-based Merck Sharp & Dohme LLC breached a court order blocking its use of the name "Merck" in a move to safeguard German rival Merck KGaA's trademark rights.

  • March 28, 2025

    AstraZeneca Can't Stop Generic Diabetes Drug Launch

    AstraZeneca has lost an attempt to prevent pharmaceutical company Glenmark from launching a generic version of its $1 billion diabetes drug Forxiga, as a London court refused on Friday to stop the generic maker before a decision on whether AstraZeneca's patent is valid.

  • March 27, 2025

    AstraZeneca Fights Generic Diabetes Drug Launch

    AstraZeneca on Thursday asked a London court to block pharmaceutical company Glenmark from launching a generic version of the drug giant's $1 billion Type 2 diabetes treatment Forxiga, ahead of a decision on whether AstraZeneca's patent is valid.

  • March 27, 2025

    Warner Bros 'Multiversus' UK TM Gets Green Light

    Warner Bros. can register a trademark for its online multiplayer game Multiversus, after British officials ruled that gamers would think it was entirely disconnected from a rival firm's "Versus" brand.

  • March 27, 2025

    Parties Can Dodge Costs By Surrendering Patents, UPC Says

    Parties facing challenges to their patents can swerve liability for their opponent's costs by giving up their intellectual property protections at the outset of the dispute, an appeals panel at the Unified Patent Court has ruled.

  • March 27, 2025

    Beverage Biz Can't Corner The Market For 'Norwich City' TM

    U.K. trademark officials have chucked a drinks maker's bid for a "Norwich City" trademark for alcoholic drinks, rejecting the company's argument that it should be allowed because the city's football club already owns a trademark for "Norwich City FC."

  • March 27, 2025

    Top EU Court Urged To Uphold €60M Teva Pay-For-Delay Fine

    An adviser to the European Union's top court said Thursday that it should uphold €60.5 million ($70.7 million) in fines against Teva and its subsidiary Cephalon for an alleged conspiracy to keep a generic version of Provigil off the shelves.

  • March 27, 2025

    Unitary Patent Uptake 'Surpassing Expectations,' EPO Says

    The European Patent Office has said it received more than 28,000 requests for unitary protection in its second year as more than a quarter of applicants sought to protect their inventions under the new framework.

  • March 26, 2025

    Claims Firm Beats Whistleblower's Fraud Case

    A claims manager didn't blow the whistle on forged signatures at an insurance claims handler because he had waited until his resignation day to alert senior management, an employment tribunal has ruled.

  • March 26, 2025

    Software Developer Loses 'Baidu' TM On Appeal

    A Dutch provider of software for TV channels has lost its rights to use "Baidu" as a trademark, after a European court found that it hadn't used the name to market goods and services it had applied for.

  • March 26, 2025

    Bacardi Halts Counterfeit Grey Goose Bottles At Dutch Court

    Bacardi has convinced a Dutch court to bar a Hong Kong drinks trader from selling counterfeit Grey Goose vodka in the Netherlands, after the court found the company had infringed Bacardi's protected branding.

  • March 26, 2025

    Cannabis Event Biz Loses Bid For 'Cannafair' TM

    A European court threw out a challenge by cannabis trade fair company Cannafair on Wednesday over the decision by European trademark officials to refuse a trademark for the name of its event, ruling that its name was a literal description of the event.

  • March 26, 2025

    Lotus Biscoff Loses EU Appeal To Register Color TM

    Lotus Bakeries NV has lost another bid to protect the red and white coloring of its biscuit packaging after failing to convince European officials that shoppers would immediately recognize its brand.

  • March 26, 2025

    EU Court Upholds Polish Biz's Rights To Public Toilet Design

    A European Union court has rejected a Polish company's latest bid to quash a rival's protections for a public toilet design, ruling Wednesday that the design was new and consequently valid.

  • March 25, 2025

    Portuguese Bag Maker Can't Nix Rival 'Cavallini' TM

    European officials have ruled that an Italian designer can sell leather goods and clothing using the trademark "about a boy Erika Cavallini" because shoppers would understand it wasn't related to Cavalinho-branded bags and accessories. 

  • March 25, 2025

    Amazon Can't Make Last-Minute Tweaks In Nokia UPC Clash

    Amazon has lost its bid to file additional grounds of appeal in a patent dispute with Nokia over video-coding technology after Europe's patent court held that it wouldn't be fair to its Finnish rival.

Expert Analysis

  • 9 Ways To Prepare Your IP Rights For Brexit

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    Those with a European intellectual property portfolio should be considering how Brexit — scheduled for March 29 — will affect EU trademarks and registered community designs, says Paula Jill Krasny of Levenfeld Pearlstein LLC.

  • 'Biosimilar V. Biosimilar' Patent Case May Be First Of Many

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    ​While the idea of patent disputes between makers of follow-on drugs is nothing new​, the complaint recently filed by Coherus against Amgen in Delaware federal court is unique in that it pits one biosimilar developer against another, say attorneys with Goodwin Procter LLP.

  • UK Patent Law: Hot Topics Of 2018 And What's Ahead

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    English courts have been active in the past year, grappling with patent topics like plausibility and equivalents, and 2019 promises to be another exciting year as English patent lawyers await developments on obviousness, insufficiency and employee inventor compensation, says Jin Ooi of Kirkland & Ellis LLP.

  • Coordinating Patent Strategies Across PTAB And EPO

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    The positions, arguments and prior art raised in U.S. post-grant proceedings at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board may influence European Patent Office oppositions involving counterpart cases. Understanding the procedural similarities and differences between the two jurisdictions is key, says Drew Schulte of Haley Guiliano LLP.

  • New EU Patent Guidelines May Affect Companies' AI Strategy

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    As compared to the European Patent Office’s guidelines for artificial intelligence and machine learning — which take effect on Thursday — the U.S. eligibility framework may prove to be more favorable to innovators, say Jennifer Maisel and Eric Blatt of Rothwell Figg Ernst & Manbeck PC​​​​​​​.

  • Intellectual Property Caught In US-China Trade Crossfire

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    Earlier this year, President Donald Trump imposed tariffs on Chinese products as a response to China’s trade practices concerning technology transfer, intellectual property and innovation. The U.S.-Chinese trade war highlights the need to approach investments in China differently, taking a broad view of intellectual assets and looking beyond basic legal protection, says Holly White, a consultant at Rouse & Co.

  • Patent Eligibility Assessments: US Approach Vs. UK Approach

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    Techniques used to address questions of obviousness in the U.K. may prove useful to practitioners addressing questions of patent eligibility in the U.S., say Christopher Carroll and Charles Larsen of White & Case LLP.

  • Surveying The CRISPR Patent War

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    Following this week’s oral argument at the Federal Circuit in University of California v. Broad Institute, there has been a surge of interest in the long-running CRISPR patent dispute. There are battles raging on multiple fronts, particularly in Europe, with several more on deck in the U.S., and maybe even in China, says Michael Stramiello of Paul Hastings LLP.

  • UK Patent Ruling Sharpens Contrast With US Practice

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    The U.K. Court of Appeal's decision last month in Regeneron v. Kymab is significant because it aligns the U.K.’s approach to the assessment of insufficiency with that of the European Patent Office. It also highlights, for U.S. companies, the stricter standard to which patent specifications are subject in Europe, say Edward Kelly and Regina Sam Penti of Ropes & Gray LLP.

  • IP Considerations For UK Open Banking App Developers

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    Since January of this year, consumer-facing banks in the U.K. have been required to make customers' banking data available to authorized third parties in a standardized format. As competition between open banking app developers increases, intellectual property rights will become a key legal tool, say Rajvinder Jagdev and Peter Damerell of Powell Gilbert LLP.

  • The Case For Early Mediation Or Arbitration In IP Disputes

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    Alternative dispute resolution is one of the best ways to resolve disputes involving patents, copyright, trademark, trade secrets and other intellectual property issues. While not every situation lends itself to ADR, it is more accessible than many parties assume, says Jerry Cohen of Burns & Levinson LLP.

  • International Arbitration In 2018: A Year Of Rule Revisions

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    Though still in its relative infancy, 2018 is shaping up to be a year of arbitral institution rule updates. Neil Newing and Ryan Cable of Signature Litigation LLP explore some of the more innovative and trending rule changes expected or predicted this year.

  • A Look At Chemical Supplemental Examination Requests

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    If used strategically, supplemental examination at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office can provide a powerful tool for chemical patent owners to add to their armamentarium of options for Orange Book-listed patents when conducting a due diligence analysis of their patent estate prior to Orange Book listing, say attorneys with Finnegan Henderson Farabow Garrett & Dunner LLP.

  • Cloud-Based Patent Claims — And How Providers Can Help

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    Cloud customers may be exposed to liability for open source technologies that are buried deep within their providers’ offerings. In-house legal teams and developers need to be aware of the risk of patent litigation and the extent to which cloud providers can help mitigate these risks, says R. Paul Zeineddin of Zeineddin PLLC.

  • Comparing EU And US Standard-Essential Patent Guidance

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    The European Commission's long-awaited guidance on litigating and licensing standard-essential patents clarifies what conduct may insulate an SEP owner from abuse claims under competition law, in sharp contrast to the U.S., where the Federal Trade Commission and U.S. Department of Justice have declined to adopt any views on the subject, say Edward Kelly and Regina Sam Penti of Ropes & Gray LLP.

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