Posts Tagged: "japan"

In the assessment of similarity, the Board considered a term “MARCHE” to be less distinctive or inherently descriptive in connection with “retail services or wholesale services for foods and beverages” of class 35 since the term itself means “market” in French. Besides it can be seen often as a sign to indicate a place where merchants provide foods or beverages directly to consumers in Japan. Meanwhile, average consumers with an ordinary care are unlikely to perceive any descriptive meaning from the term of “RITZ”. Therefore, in the configuration of disputed mark “RITZMARCHE”, it should be allowed to extract the term “RITZ” as a prominent part of the mark.

The firm has more than doubled in size with the addition of Darrin Auito, Hirotsuna Yamashita, Jessica Harrison, and James Judge. These new members bring many years of experience as counsel at top 25 law firms and examiners and senior level staff (SME and Central Reexamination Unit Supervisor) at the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and the Japan Patent Office (Chief Appeal Examiner and Director).

At this moment in history almost everything we thought we knew about global patent protection is being challenged. The U.S. is not the most patent friendly jurisdiction in the world, instead being tied for 10th with Hungary, which really puts into perspective the fall from grace patent rights are having in America… There is no doubt that the U.S. continues to take steps backwards due to variety of self- inflicted wounds. The omnipresent threats of more patent reform, a Supreme Court that has created unprecedented uncertainty surrounding what is patent eligible (see e.g., here, here and here), and a Patent Trial and Appeal Board that has been openly hostile to property owners (see e.g., here and here), allows harassment of certain patent owners over and over again, all the while failing in its mission to provide relief from patent trolls. Meanwhile, a number of countries around the world have taken positive steps forward on the patent front, including countries you might not ordinarily consider as patent friendly jurisdictions.

President-Elect Donald Trump has announced that he will withdraw the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement on his first day in office. So ends more than five years of often heated negotiations led by President Barack Obama’s administration as part of an overall strategy to strengthen the US position in the Pacific Rim region… Pulling out of the TPP is a missed opportunity for the US to pursue its IPR agenda in the Pacific Rim economies.

The distinctive character is one of the universally accepted criteria for registration of a sign as a trademark. This criterion is derived from the main function of a trademark, i.e. to distinguish the goods or services of one undertaking from those of other undertakings. This requirement is set out in Article 6quinquies (B) (2) of the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property and in the national laws of the countries that are parties to this Convention. Ukraine and the European Union (the “EU”) are no exception. Both in Ukraine (Article 6(2) of the Law of Ukraine “On Protection of Rights to Trademarks”) and in the EU (Article 3(1) of the EU Directive to approximate the laws of the Member States relating to trade marks), signs which are devoid of any distinctive character may not be registered as trademarks.

For non-residents, getting an invention to market in Japan is no small task. Filing patents there can pose significant challenges. More than cultural and language barriers, unique Japanese filing requirements and an unforgiving post-grant landscape could undo even the best and brightest market opportunities. Avoid the hassle and heartburn with these seven things that will help prepare you for filing in Japan.

Protection of the official names of States and prevention of their registration and use as trademarks have been the focus of attention of the Standing Committee on the Law of Trademarks, Industrial Designs and Geographical Indications at the World Intellectual Property Organization (the “SCT”) for over six years (since June 2009). Each of the WIPO Member States has both its own national procedures with their peculiarities and some coinciding positions on the subject. Generally speaking, when performing the examination, the competent national authority examines the sign applied for registration as a trademark and consisting of or containing the name of a State in light of formal and substantive legal requirements, like any other sign.

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) has published its annual World Intellectual Property Indicators. The 2015 report dissects the macro trends associated with filing activity and registrations for 2014 in the following intellectual property areas: patents, trademarks, industrial designs, and plant varieties… The twenty-year era of growth in industrial design patent applications came to an abrupt end in 2014… The decline in global applications stems primarily from the pronounced decrease in resident filings at the State Intellectual Property Office of the People’s Republic of China (SIPO), which fell 14.9% over the past year.

A rising tide lifts all boats. While an age-old saying, the concept is relatively simple really. Of course, the path to broad based economic opportunity for all has been elusive for many countries. If underdeveloped and developing countries are going to transform economically, they need to encourage and support innovation. That means many countries like those facing the so called middle income trap like China, South Africa and Brazil, may want to think about IP protection and enforcement and what it could mean for economic development, in terms of encouraging foreign investment, and with respect to raising the quality of life.

The IP5 is the name given to a forum of the five largest intellectual property offices in the world that was set-up to improve the efficiency of the examination process for patents worldwide. The top five Patent Offices (IP5) have recognized this internationalization phenomenon and many directives have been introduced to facilitate cooperation between the patent offices… For example, the IP5’s Common Citation Document (CCD) application now allows access of up-to-date citation data of all five patent offices.

Unfortunately, we are going through another period where many see the triumvirate of big government, big business and big labor guiding an economy stuck at a 2% growth rate as preferable to the messy “creative destruction” of free enterprise capitalism. The emphasis on making sure the existing economic pie is fairly distributed rather than grown leads to increased hostility to the intellectual property system. We see arguments that patents harm rather than stimulate innovation and hear how much better it would be if they were placed in the public domain or licensed non-exclusively to be more fair. Many have forgotten that our prosperity is the result of inventions that in just a few decades created a standard of living previously unimaginable.

Japan is also the country with the greatest number of foreign priority patent applications at the USPTO. With almost 1.1 million total foreign priority filings and over 389,000 foreign priority filings with the USPTO for utility patents since 2005, Japan is second only to domestic US patent applicants in terms of volume. While quantity does not always mean quality, Japanese filers are also the most successful in front of the USPTO with nearly 78% of patent applications allowed overall and nearly 79% of utility patent applications allowed since 2005.

Near the middle of August, a nuclear power plant operated by Kyushu Electric Power in the Japanese city of Sendai restarted its reactors to produce electricity once more for the country’s electrical grid. The move is significant because it is the first of 25 nuclear power plants in Japan to restart after applying to reopen since the 2011 explosion of the Fukushima Daiichi plant, the world’s most recent nuclear disaster. There have understandably been some mixed reactions to the decision. Areas around the Fukushima Daiichi plant are still so heavily contaminated with radiation that there are many of the 160,000 people originally evacuated from the region who still cannot return.

Not a single American automaker was expected to increase its market share over the next five years, according to global auditing firm KPMG in its 2015 Global Automotive Executive Survey. In terms of mass-market production, only General Motors and Ford rank in the top ten of auto manufacturers from across the globe. One country whose carmakers have done a great job of stepping in and commandeering significant parts of America’s market share for autos is Japan. Nissan and Toyota are two car brands which are incredibly familiar to today’s American consumer. However, when these companies entered the American market, it was almost laughable to think that either would manage to survive, let alone succeed.

To patent folks April 10, 1790 is the day that the earth shook, the heavens opened, and history was forever altered. 225 years ago, on April 10, 1790, President George Washington signed the first version of the U.S. patent act. It was the third Act of Congress. Madison, through a series of letters back and forth between Jefferson, who was in France helping Ben Franklin secure French support for the nascent US revolution, persuaded Jefferson that a limited monopoly on an inventor’s own creations was a good idea.