LIONS; LICENSEES; 26 & 27


An away win for England

The International Herald Tribune reports that the Beijing's No. 1 Intermediate People's Court has upheld a decision protecting the England three-lions trade mark. The mark was registered in 2001, although not before a dispute with the Xiangshi Celebration Service Company (the defendant in this case), which applied to register its own three-lions logo.



The IPKat is frankly baffled as to why anyone would want to emulate the England football team.


Protection for patent licensees

Blackenterprise.com reports that the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry is proposing measures to protect licensees of patents where the owners of the patents merge or go bankrupt. While such licensees are currently protected in principle, in practice the licences need to be registered through a cumbersome process which is little-used. The new regime would seek to improve this by removing the requirement that the individual patents be disclosed. Instead, it would be sufficient to register the blanket contract.

The IPKat welcomes protection for users of blanket licences

The IPKat is in favour of any step that reduces inconvenience for licensees in circumstances that are beyond their control and further notes that, if the licenses are economically efficient, the ultimate beneficiaries of their continued existence will be consumers.


Welcome to the EU

The IPKat welcomes Bulgaria and Romania into the EU, as of midnight.


The good news for IP owners is a wider geographical scope of Community trade marks and Community designs (and the Community patent, if it ever happens, adds Merpel wickedly).
LIONS; LICENSEES; 26 & 27 LIONS; LICENSEES; 26 & 27 Reviewed by Anonymous on Sunday, December 31, 2006 Rating: 5

1 comment:

  1. The "three lions" concerned are of course heraldic arms in England; however I have yet to see any IP practioner make any comments about heraldry as IP - despite the fact that IIRC, the Manchester City Council once brought a successful action to stop a commercial business using their arms, showing they can have real commercial relevance, and despiote them obviously being "itellectual" property, for they are certaily not "real" property. Given the antiquity of heraldic laws, some of the powers granted to their bearers seem quite powerful. For instance, were this action to be brought in England, the FA would ppresumably not have to bother with trademark law at all in bringing its suit.

    Regards,

    Luke Ueda-Sarson

    ReplyDelete

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