This program is expected to introduce hundreds of new domains, such as .shop, .green, .[brand], etc., to the existing 22 top level domains (e.g., .com, .net., .info, .biz) by next year, fundamentally changing the internet and the landscape for trademark owners.

This was supposed change effective May 4, 2011, when a new, expensive, option was to have become available in the form of a request for Prioritized Examination. The ink was hardly dry on this new scheme, when the USPTO reversed its track and decided to put this new scheme on hold in April due to budgetary cuts.

In April of 1996, Kirkbi A/S (Lego) filed an application for a three-dimensional rectangular red block, with two rows of four cylindrical studs on top. OHIM — the agency that registers trademarks in the European Union — found the mark had acquired a distinctive character, and registered it in October of 1999. Ritvik Holdings Inc. (Mega) contested the registration. In July 2004, the Cancellation Division found that the registration for the mark should be invalidated because it was an object designed to obtain a technical result.

• Starting October, 2010, Ladas Watch Notices will include English language translations of goods and services for conflicting marks found in more than 65 jurisdictions that do not publish marks in the English language.
• Complimentary 24-hour response to requests for English translations of conflicting marks if not already provided on our Watch Notices.
• Customized Chinese and Japanese Watch Services accomplished by a team of native speaking IP professionals, who are familiar with our watch portfolios and monitor translations, transliterations, meaning, dialects, graphic representations, and commercial use of published Chinese and Japanese marks.
• Production enhancements that will ensure even greater accuracy and timeliness of our Watch Notices.
• Customized and flexible solutions for your Watch requirements powered by a combination of digitized enhancements and personalized vetting and translation services.
• Applicant Watch for monitoring competitor’s trademark strategies in more than 50 jurisdictions.

Recently the Court of Appeals of the Federal Circuit affirmed a decision involving a patent mismarking claim under 35 USC 292 which involved the lack of deceptive intent of the patent owner in Pequignot v. Solo Cup Co. ___ F3d ___ (Fed. Cir., 2010). The case involved two primary issues: (1) whether it was actionable mismarking to continue to mark product with patent numbers once the subject patents had expired and (2) whether the general language to the effect that a product “may be covered by one or more … pending or issued patents” was actionable mismarking. While mentioning the decision on the first issue, the focus will be on the second issue for purposes of this article.

1) in case G2/08 (Dosage regime/Abbott Respiratory) the extent to which differences other than treatment of a totally different disease from what had been treated in the prior art justified a “second medical use” claim; and

2) in case G1/07 (Treatment by surgery/Medi-Physics), the extent of the European Patent Convention’s exclusion of methods of treatment of the human or animal body by way of surgery.

With these thoughts in mind, John Richards has written an article on the Patent Law of the People’s Republic of China. John&srquo;s article examines not only the different types of protection afforded inventions in China, but also how patent applications should be drafted and prosecuted. John then examines opposition proceedings and the licensing and enforcement of patent rights in China.

More significantly, for some types of invention, use of a petty patent or utility model as a means of protection may be a useful alternative to traditional patent protection in many countries. Obtaining protection this way is often much less expensive than proceeding through the traditional patent route and, as noted in the article, in several countries has an advantage in its own right. Such protection can be obtained either by direct filing or by use of the Patent Cooperation Treaty.

Direct link to the Updated Article

In In re Kubin, the Court affirmed a decision of the Board of Appeals of the USPTO that claims to an isolated polynucleotide molecule encoding a polypeptide at least 80% identical with a defined amino acid sequence in a known polypeptide was obvious over that known polypeptide.

In Ariad Pharmaceuticals Inc. v. Eli Lilly and Company the Court reversed a district court decision to hold that a claim to modifying external influences on a cell by inhibition of expression of a gene whose transcription is regulated by NF-κB by reducing NF-κB binding to its recognition sites on the gene complied with the written description requirement of 35 USC 112, the Court of Appeals finding that the description failed to show that there was true possession of the invention at the time of filing the application because no compounds capable of effecting such inhibition were disclosed. The third decision writes a further chapter in the saga of US Patent 5,583,216 (Ochiai, having a priority date of December 19, 1974).

In Takeda Pharmaceutical Corp. v. Doll, the Court of Appeals vacated the decision of the district court and remanded the case for further fact finding on the question of whether claims to a method of making certain acylated cephems constituted double patenting over earlier claims to the acylated cephems themselves.

Last year in Aristocrat Technologies Australia PTY Ltd. v. International Game Technology, the district court for the Northern District of California held that revival of an application where the U.S. national phase entry was one day late was possible only if one met the "unavoidable" standard set by the patent statute. It held that this standard had not been met and concluded that this failure meant that the patent was invalid. On September 22, 2008, the Court of Appeals for Federal Circuit (CAFC) reversed the district court's decision on invalidity on the basis that "improper revival" was not a ground of invalidity under either of the two provisions relied on by the district court to invalidate the patent.

In Litecubes LLC v. Northern Light Products, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit was confronted with a case in which novelty items (illuminable artificial “ice cubes” than can be placed in drinks) were made in China and sold into the United States by a Canadian Corporation (Northern Lights). It was claimed that these items fell within the scope of United States patents and were also the subject of copyright protection. The sales into the United States were made “free on board” Northern Lights Canadian offices so that legal ownership of the novelties was transferred from the Canadian corporation before the goods actually entered the United States.

This bulletin deals with the decision handed down by the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit which determined that jurisdiction does attach in this fact situation.