Lithuania Archives - IPWatchdog.com

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.

Olga Kreshchenko

July 12, 2016

Re-Classification According to New EU Trade Mark Regulation

The new European Community Trade Mark Regulation, as approved by Regulation (EU) 2015/2424 of the European Parliament, entered into force on March 23, 2016. Among other amendments, the provisions of Article 28(8) of the new Regulation substantially change the approach to interpretation of ICGS class headings included in the list of goods/services covered by EU trademarks applied for before June 2012. Previously, before June 22, 2012, a trade mark was deemed to be protected in respect of the entire range of ICGS goods and services included in the alphabetical list for that class provided that such trade mark was registered with reference to the heading of the respective ICGS class.

Yuliia Matsiuk

May 3, 2016

Foreign Priority Applications at the USPTO

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.

Katrina Brundage & Tristan Gray-LeCoz

September 8, 2015