Posts Tagged: "montenegro"

Protection of Official Names of States and Prevention of their Registration and Use as Trademarks

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.

World Intellectual Property Indicators 2014: Design Patent Highlights

In 2013, 647,300 industrial design registrations were filed – a 6.4% drop from 2012. The decline in global registrations stems primarily from the slow-down of Chinese manufacturing, which produced 12% fewer registrations than the previous year. After seven years of consecutive growth, 2013’s global registrations of 919,100 designs represents a 3.3% decrease from 2012. In 2013, upwards of three million industrial design registrations were in force.

Intellectual Property News from Eastern Europe

At the start of the new year I pledged that I would start to try and expand the scope of IPWatchdog.com to touch upon intellectual property matters outside the United States. In part this means trying to add an international flavor where appropriate, which is certainly always possible in part through discussion of the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT). In another facet it means profiling interesting stories relating to foreign intellectual property laws.