The IPKat's friend and revered colleague Dave Pearce (Eric Potter Clarkson), of ukpatents wiki fame, writes as follows:
"I notice that the UK Patent Office are proposing some fairly minor changes to the Rules, intended to take effect as from 1 April next year. Their notice and consultation document is available here.The IPKat feels that the Gowers review - whatever else it might achieve - will certainly keep teams of worthy civil servants employed in responding to its aftermath.
In brief, the changes will involve(i) the removal of the 14 day period during which documents filed remain confidential, under current Rule 93(4)(a), which will be deleted;(ii) removing the requirement for filing of duplicate copies of specifications, currently required by Rule 20(2) and(iii) in line with changes to the PCT Rules due to come into force at the same time, allowing applicants to make a late declaration of priority within 1 month of national phase entry, by disapplying Rule 6A and including new provision in Rule 85.
(i) and ii) are the result of changing to electronic systems at the Office, whereas (iii) is to keep UK law in line with the PCT.Quite simple really. However, there is a warning that after the Gowers review has come in there may be bigger changes on the horizon".
![](http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5414/204/200/european%20trade%20mark%20reports.jpg)
The December 2006 issue of Sweet & Maxwell's monthly law reports, the European Trade Mark Reports, has now been published - commendably early for its subscribers and conveniently early for its printers, who must by now be fully cognisant of the impending Christmas holidays. Significant cases reported in English for the first time are
* Sara Lee Meats Europe BV v Ladyberg SpA (Court of Bergamo, Italy) - infringement action involving invisible underwear for ladies and calculation of damages;
Left: not all cats wear invisible underwear, it seems
* Adidas International v FDB (Maritime and Commercial Court, Denmark) - yes, you've guessed it, it's another three-stripe case. This time round the defendant was using a four-stripe motif as an embellishment and the infringement claim was dismissed.
Right: the Irish Patents Office said there's no such thing as a milkbear, but Mori Hiroshi has created one ...
As ever, if you come across a case you'd like to see reported in the ETMR, email the IPKat's co-blogmeisters at theipkat@yahoo.co.uk and let them know.
UK PATENT RULES TO CHANGE - AND MORE TO COME? LATEST ETMR
Reviewed by Jeremy
on
Sunday, November 19, 2006
Rating:
No comments:
All comments must be moderated by a member of the IPKat team before they appear on the blog. Comments will not be allowed if the contravene the IPKat policy that readers' comments should not be obscene or defamatory; they should not consist of ad hominem attacks on members of the blog team or other comment-posters and they should make a constructive contribution to the discussion of the post on which they purport to comment.
It is also the IPKat policy that comments should not be made completely anonymously, and users should use a consistent name or pseudonym (which should not itself be defamatory or obscene, or that of another real person), either in the "identity" field, or at the beginning of the comment. Current practice is to, however, allow a limited number of comments that contravene this policy, provided that the comment has a high degree of relevance and the comment chain does not become too difficult to follow.
Learn more here: http://ipkitten.blogspot.com/p/want-to-complain.html