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IPKat has been busy web-crawling over the past week and is delighted to bring its readers a roundup of the most exciting IP posts. Patents Northwestern University, Pritzker Law School, has released three databases on technology standards and standard-setting organisations. The databases are available free of charge for all academic researchers. IP Finance reports: Northwestern Releases Technology Standards and Standard Setting Organizations Databases and Congratulations to Dr. Roya Ghafele! The traditional rule of assignor estoppel prevents prior owners of a patent from later challenging the validity of the patent. In Arista Networks case , the Federal Circuit was faced with the question of whether assignor estoppel applies to prevent an assignor from later challenging a patent in an inter partes review proceeding. Resting its analysis on the statutory language, the Court ruled that assignor estoppel finds no basis in the AIA. PatentlyO review is available here: Inventors Can Chall...

Last month, this Kat attended the Thomson Reuters Practical Law 4th Annual Trade Mark Conference at etc.venues in London. The Impact of Brexit on Trade Marks After the formal welcomes and introductions, the first Plenary session kicked off by heading straight into everyone’s favourite topic: the impact of Brexit on trade marks. The panel of experts (Kate O’rourke Mbe Senior Counsel, Charles Russell Speechlys; Simon Gray Partner, Tomkins; Simon Malynicz Qc Barrister, 3 New Square; Dominic Farnsworth Partner, Lewis Silkin) considered such questions as: Where are we now? Representation rights during transition and post Brexit; The shape of the UK’s relationship with the EU after the transition period – progress; The shape of IP law in the UK in the longer term; How is the UK IPO gearing up for Brexit?; What should IP lawyers and in-house IP teams be doing to prepare for Brexit? As readers can probably imagine, the general take-away message was one of uncertainty and concern. For practiti...

David Stone recently shared his wisdom on the current and anticipated EU designs law changes with IPSoc members. IPSoc is the society for junior IP lawyers in the UK, you can find out more about joining IPSoc here . The current legal framework for designs in the EU dates back to 1998 (the Design Directive ) and 2001 (the Community Design Regulation ) . When the Regulation was introduced, the law was completely new. In practice, it was a combination of the law relating to designs of the 14 Member States (at that time) who had designs law within their national systems. For readers wondering what led to the design reforms and what happened next, David's handy summary of the history of the EU designs reforms is below. The reviews of designs law Th e EU has been evaluating the effectiveness of designs law. The purpose of this review is to check whether EU designs law :  has achieved its objectives including efficiency, relevance and effectiveness. is still considered  fit for p...

This evening, it was the annual IBIL and MARQUES event - Question the Trade Mark Judges   this time in UCL's snazzy new lecture theatre. This year the judges were: HHJ Melissa Clarke (Senior Circuit Judge, Designated Civil Judge for Thames Valley, Beds & Herts) Judge Octavia Spineanu-Matei (General Court, Court of Justice of the European Union) The Hon Mrs Justice Vivien Rose Harri Salmi (EUIPO Boards of Appeal member) The debate was meant to be chaired by The Rt Hon Professor Sir Robin Jacob but due to various transport related delays, Roland Mallinson stepped into the breach for the first half. Both chairs posed a set of pre-selected questions from the audience. A quick plug from MARQUES Before things kicked off, Roland Mallison gave a short plug for MARQUES' amicus curiae team. If readers have any cases where it might be helpful to have MARQUES' input, they should get in touch. How much training is required to become a judge? The judges all had very different backgro...

Photo c/o @AARCS_Canada As the Brexit [excitement/disaster/debacle - readers can pick their preferred option] starts to heat up, the IPKat has an update from Darren Meale who has been closely following the countdown to "B-day". Over to Darren: Following Rosie’s post here , the following is an update on my countdown to Brexit from the brands perspective, last written about at the T-266 days point .   We don’t know that “no deal” will happen, but it seems a whole lot more likely than it did when I wrote my first 680 days to Brexit post. Sigh. If there is a “deal”, things should play out as I described here , although there’s plenty of detail lacking on that. If there is “no deal”, the UK government says it will deal with trade marks and designs as set out in this notice . Exhaustion of IP rights is dealt with in this notice and copyright (not discussed further here) is covered in this one . Geographical indications (also not discussed further here) are covered in anothe...

The 201 st edition of Never Too Late is here to bring you up to speed on the latest and greatest of the IPKat world! Today’s highlights include no-deal Brexit analysis, event reports, copyright in fireworks, logos and even football trophies! And for Kat’s sake – what is ‘Fiverrization’?! IPR Melting Pot The UK Government has issued a number of technical notices relating to IPR’s in a no-Brexit scenario. In UK copyright in a no-deal Brexit scenario: what will happen? , Kat Eleonora Rosati reviews Copyright if there’s no Brexit deal . GuestKat Rosie Burbidge sheds light onto the exhaustion of rights ( No deal Brexit - what does it mean for exhaustion of rights? ), patents ( No deal Brexit - what will happen to patents - particularly SPCs and the UPC? ), and registered Community designs and trade marks ( No deal Brexit - what does it mean for registered Community designs and trade marks ). GuestKat Mathilde Pavis provides her insights about a new phenomenon/business model-- ‘Fiverrizatio...

Take a tour of the IP blogosphere with IPKat! Highlights this week include a series of articles on the impact of brexit on the patent system, a commentary on whether blockchain can reasonably be used to protect trade secrets and a case of invalid priority in the US.  Trademarks The Journal of Intellectual Property Law and Practice (JIPLP) provides an "Authors' Take" by Daniel R. Bereskin, Q.C. on  Likelihood of Confusion: The Irrational Basis of Trademark Protection . Is the “likelihood of confusion” (“LOC”) test, as in the view of Professor Roger Bone, a "mess"? Likelihood of confusion? Patents Kat friends Matthias Lamping and Hanns Ullrich of the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition, have recently published two articles on the impact of Brexit on the unitary patent system and the unified patent judiciary: " The European Union’s Patent System after Brexit: Disunited, but Unified?" and " The Unified Patent Court, and How Brexit Br...