Category IP Law

Australia Accepts Indonesia WTO Dispute On Tobacco Packaging; Calls For Five Disputes To Be Joined

Australia yesterday took the unusual move of agreeing to the first request by Indonesia to establish a World Trade Organization dispute panel against it. The ready acceptance of the panel request was an attempt by Australia to bring the some or all of the five separate cases against its tobacco plain packaging law together for resource reasons and to protect the integrity of the WTO dispute settlement mechanism, it said in a statement to the Dispute Settlement Body.

US Corporate IP Counsel Hear Latest Updates On Patent System

NEW YORK - “This is a very, very exciting time be in patent law,” Drew Hirshfeld, deputy commissioner for patent examination policy at the US Patent and Trademark Office, told a group of intellectual property lawyers last week.

In his keynote address to the 19-20 March Corporate IP Counsel meeting in Manhattan, Hirshfeld and a range of private sector speakers laid out a picture of a highly dynamic field, with legal and business opportunities and challenges changing every day.

EU Unified Patent Court Judicial Training Centre Launches

The European Union Unified Patent Court agreement has not yet been fully ratified but plans are on track to ensure that the judges who staff it are of the highest quality, speakers said at today’s opening ceremony for the judicial training centre in Budapest, Hungary. Future UPC users still have some concerns about the new system, but are giving it a generally good reception, the chairman of the UPC Preparatory Committee said.

Novel Legal Attack On Patent Trolls Falters In US

It began last May, when a tiny state in the United States launched a novel legal attack against a notorious patent troll. Other states and the federal government soon followed, all asserting that the troll’s efforts to licence its patents violated consumer protection laws. At first, this new legal strategy produced some significant victories. Many experts and government officials embraced consumer protection law as an important new tool against patent trolls. But a recent court ruling has cast doubt on the future of this once-promising strategy.

Infojustice.org: Australia Commits To Overhaul Of Copyright Act

From infojustice.org: [Australian Digital Alliance] It has been a big week for Australian Copyright. On Thursday the Attorney-General, the Hon George Brandis QC, tabled the long-anticipated final report from the Australian Law Reform Commission’s (ALRC) Copyright and the Digital Economy inquiry. This inquiry was charged with determining if copyright exceptions and limitations were working in the digital age. The conclusion was that reform was needed.

Alert: Pharma IPR 2014 Conference In Mumbai, 26-28 February

Dear Subscribers,

CPhI's 3rd Annual Pharma IPR 2014 conference to take place from 26-28 February, 2014 in Mumbai, India will have techno-legal experts from over 10+ regions speaking on the recent case studies on global Pharma and Biopharma patent laws.

Among them, Jeffery Alan Hovden, Partner, Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi LLP from US will be speaking on critical developments in US pharma patent law in the year 2013 which have affected pharma and biopharma industry. He will also share best strategies on how Indian generic-drug and biologics enterprises need to go forward with their US-related projects.

Some of the critical concerns he is planning to address include:

  • Which pharmaceutical and diagnostic compounds and processes can even obtain a US patent?
  • Whether the new, cheap and fast patent-challenge procedures are right for Indian companies in the life-sciences area?
  • How to avoid paying the attorney fees for the other side in US litigation and indeed, how an Indian company might turn the tables and have the other side pay the company’s attorney fees?

You can view his insights on "US Patent Law in 2013: Winds of Change" by clicking here.

To optimise interactions with the audience, he and other global techno-legal experts would also be available in query handling sessions as well as one-on-one meetings, to discuss your concerns related to the US patent system. Click here to go through the detailed programme agenda.

You can read more about the conference speakers here.
To be a part of this exclusive event, please contact the organisers at +91 (22) 6172 7001 / conferences-india@ubm.com, or register online and take advantage of the special offers for you as you are our subscribers.

P.S. You may find one of his earlier presentations on “From Small to Big: Some useful points in the coming shift from customary drugs to biologics” interesting - View the presentation here

Year Ahead: In US, 2014 Promises Bad News For Patent Trolls And Trademark Owners

2013 was an awkward year in the United States for so-called “patent trolls.” These companies, whose primary business is monetising their patents through licensing and litigation, faced growing criticism from academics, business executives, and US government officials. 2014 could prove even worse for trolls: America’s Congress, courts and executive branch are now considering various measures that would make patent trolling more difficult. And those are just some of the major changes that are likely to roil the US IP system this year.

Top IP-Watch Stories Of 2013: India, Marrakesh Treaty, Seed/Gene Patents, WIPO Election

Looking back on 2013, the list of the most-viewed stories on the Intellectual Property Watch website shows that reporting on activities in India, especially related to patents and public health, continued to draw the most attention. Other top stories were the Marrakesh Treaty on copyright exceptions for blind readers, legal cases involving patents on seeds and on plant and human genes, the election for World Intellectual Property Organization director general, free-trade agreements (including the Wikileaks leak of the IP chapter of the Trans-Atlantic Partnership agreement), Russian copyrights, and 3D printing.