Showing posts with label why ipr is important. Show all posts
Showing posts with label why ipr is important. Show all posts

Tuesday, 25 August 2020

Priority Watch List Strikes Again


The Special 301 report prepared yearly by the United States Trade Representative (USTR) includes the Priority watch list countries identified as having several serious Intellectual Property Rights inadequacies that need increased USTR surveillance. India once again becomes a victim of this outrageous list for the 27th year in a row due to its insufficient measurable improvements on the Intellectual Property Rights framework that have long-lasting impacts and challenges leading to negatively affecting the American right holders. Although India has taken several steps to discuss the problems of the protection and enforcement of the IP rights, many of the actions have not yet converted into tangible advantages for the creators, due to which India, according to the latest Special 301 report, still prevails as one of the world’s most challenging economies with respect to management of IP rights.

It is a matter of fact that, yes, India has definitely dismissed the observations in the Special 301 report over the years admitting it as a unilateral report of the US since India was completely amenable with multi lateral IP directives.

Along with India, USTR has identified 11 countries in its Priority Watch List including China, Indonesia, Russia, to name a few. In the report, the US mentioned that India has major long-standing IP issues making it arduous for creators to receive and perpetuate patents in their respective businesses, particularly for pharmaceuticals. Besides these long-standing concerns, India furthermore confined the transparency of information on state-issued pharmaceutical manufacturing licenses.

Moreover, India failed to create a productive system for protection against the inequitable commercial use and the unsanctioned disclosure of data produced to acquire marketing approval for various chemical products used in agriculture. The report even asserts that both China and India were the leading origins of the spurious medicines distributed on a broad scale. “Though the exact figure is not disclosed, studies have suggested that up to 20% of the drugs sold in the Indian markets could pose a serious threat to human life.”

In spite of India’s repeated premises of restraining IP laws to increase access to the growing trend in technologies, the USTR declared that India maintained exceptionally high custom duties towards IP intensive products such as pharmaceuticals, medical devices, solar energy equipment, etc.

At the same time, the report also pens down some of the best practices by India in the IP sector last year. India’s Cell for Intellectual Property Rights Promotion and Management (CIPAM) assembles the government’s efforts to unravel processes, encourage commercialization, and increase IP awareness.

As a result of the deterrent given to India and other countries, the USTR wants the governments to support the predictability of IP systems by making sure to use obligatory licenses only when the circumstances are extremely unlikely and after putting in all the efforts required to procure authorization from the patent owner using rational terms and conditions.

According to the report, The US will continue to look at developments as required with the trading partners including India. 👉 ✅  For view source: https://bit.ly/3ljauJy

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Wednesday, 29 July 2020

Understanding the Critical Elements of a Cost-Effective Legal Department


intellectual property protection

Without any second thoughts, controlling the costs in a legal department can, at times, prove to be exceedingly challenging, specifically when it comes to a growing business. Although it is imperative to protect and maintain the legal rights of businesses adequately, it is equally imperative to ensure that the legal and business strategies are well-aligned so that the legal services can effectively manage the Intellectual Property (IP) portfolio. So, let us now make ourselves familiar with a few aspects, using which a legal department can minimize its cost, that too, with little optimization.
1.     IP Benchmarking
As a brand or a business grows, there may be a coinciding growth of the IP portfolio as well. The same can prove to a bit challenging for the legal departments in business companies or organizations as every new IP asset comes with a set of additional costs. In this scenario, the concept of IP benchmarking can help the legal departments in controlling the costs of Intellectual Property Protection within the IP portfolio. With effective IP benchmarking, the legal team shall be able to understand the value and influence of every other IP asset not only individually but also as a part of the overall IP portfolio. Furthermore, the IP benchmarking process can offer valuable insights into the costs of IP protection in the market by comparing the service providers and seeing what the competitors are paying for the same set of services. It will help in making sure that a business company or organization doesn’t overpay for external legal services or fees.
2.     Resource Allocation
If the legal department of a company operates within a growing business, then it sometimes becomes difficult to control the costs as there may be a need to hire new staff members for supporting the legal work associated with the business growth. It can also include the requirement for having a specialized legal counsel. For the same reason, the legal department and the general counsel should together evaluate how the different staff members are allocated among different cases, both by time and skillset. Also, in the scenario where there is a need for specialized legal knowledge, it can be beneficial to consult an external legal services provider. As per various recent reports and surveys conducted, the tools and techniques used by the legal departments hold immense potential for cost savings. The overall costs of maintaining these resources can increase as the legal department grows; so, it is essential to assess these resources and understand whether they provide a suitable ROI for the business or not.
3.     Outsourcing Specialized Tasks
After understanding the allocation of the internal resources, you can have a better insight into the skillset and resources, which are more cost-effective to outsource. Irrespective of whether your team is managing a high workload or you require the assistance of a specialized team for a short term project, outsourcing legal work and tasks can prove to be beneficial for many reasons. The prime advantage is that your legal team would have access to additional resources and specialists with no obligation of hiring permanent staff members or paying the high costs for legal tools. If your business owns a growing IP portfolio, then you can consult an IP specialist and enable access to a broad network of legal resources, which can lead to better IP protection, specifically when it comes to tasks like IP docketing or performing a Trademark Search. The overall benefits of outsourcing can differ from one business to another; so, it is highly advisable to seek advice from different service providers and then determine what is more cost-effective for your legal department. 



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Monday, 27 July 2020

IBM Files Second Lawsuit against Zillow Alleging Patent Infringement

patent infringement

The American multinational technology company, IBM (International Business Machines Corporation), has quite recently escalated its legal battle by filing a second lawsuit against Zillow (an American online real estate database company) alleging Patent Infringement. According to IBM, Zillow has infringed upon its patents to build a real estate search engine.
In the lawsuit filed on 21st July 2020 in federal court in Washington, IBM claimed that Zillow has infringed upon five of its patents, which improve the searches by ranking results and simplifying the content displays, among several other things. IBM also alleged that despite the written notifications, Zillow has engaged in a policy of willful blindness and is still very much using the technology. As per IBM’s statement in its complaint, dozens of similar companies, including Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Google, have agreed to come into license agreements with IBM; however, Zillow is not among them. IBM stated that Zillow, instead, has chosen to infringe upon the five patents mentioned in the lawsuit filed without even paying due attention to having adequate licensing discussions in place.
For several years now, IBM and Zillow have been fighting over patent licensing deals.
Last year in September, IBM sued Zillow in federal court in California by accusing it of building its portal with the unauthorized use of IBM’s seven patented technologies. In that complaint, IBM stated that it had tried hard for three years to enter a licensing agreement with Zillow but wasn’t able to do the same. In that particular case, IBM is now seeking royalties on the billions of dollars in revenue, which Zillow has reportedly earned based on its infringement of IBM’s patented technology.
As per various reports and surveys conducted, IBM invests even more than $5 billion in research and development every year. The company has a history of filing patent infringement lawsuits against other tech giants like Twitter and Groupon. In March, this year, IBM filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Airbnb by accusing the travel startup of using its patents corresponding to improved navigation with advertising and bookmarks in an interactive service.
In a recent statement delivered, Zillow mentioned that it is very much aware of the lawsuit filed against it by IBM. Zillow believes that the claims in the lawsuit filed are without any merit. It further said that it would safeguard itself vigorously from this patent infringement lawsuit. For view source: https://www.kashishipr.com/blog/ibm-files-second-lawsuit-against-zillow-alleging-patent-infringement/
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Wednesday, 22 July 2020

Twitter Disables Trump's Retweet over Copyright Claim by Linkin Park


copyright violation

The widely known social networking platform, Twitter, has quite recently disabled a campaign-style video retweeted by President Donald Trump on 18th July 2020 over Copyright Violation. The video, which had music from Linkin Park (American rock band from Agoura Hills, California), disappeared from President Trump’s Twitter feed on 18th July 2020 with the notification – “This media has been disabled in response to a complaint filed by the Copyright Owner.”
Trump had retweeted the video from the social media director at White House, Dan Scavino. Twitter deleted the video after Machine Shop Entertainment had sent it a notice corresponding to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The notice was posted on the Lumen Database, which gets the requests for the removal of online material. According to Linkin Park’s LinkedIn profile, Machine Shop Entertainment is a management company owned by the rock band.
A Twitter representative said in an email statement that the platform responds well to all the copyright claims, which it receives from the copyright owners or their representatives. The White House, on the other hand, hasn’t yet responded to the request for comment.
This year in May, Twitter began challenging Trump’s tweets and has been clashing with him repeatedly since then. The social networking service has multiple times disabled or commented on the tweets by President Trump over violations of a policy against threatening violence and copyright complaints.
On 30th June 2020, Twitter also deleted an image tweeted by President Trump, which included a picture of himself, because of a complaint filed by The New York Times’ photographer, who had shot the image. It also disabled a tweet from President Trump behind a warning label at the end of May. According to Twitter, the tweet violated the rules against ‘glorifying violence’ when President Trump advocated that the Minneapolis authorities should have been tough in responding to the protests over the death of George Floyd. For view source: https://www.kashishipr.com/blog/twitter-disables-trumps-retweet-over-copyright-claim-by-linkin-park/

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Thursday, 16 July 2020

Instagram Opposes the Registration of Instagem Trademark


trademark registration

The widely known photo and video-sharing social networking platform, Instagram, has quite recently filed an opposition before the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) against the Trademark Registration of the word INSTAGEM by Market Organization Inc. In its opposition filed, Instagram has claimed that the INSTAGEM trademark will cause a lot of consumer confusion and also damage the reputation of Instagram. The applicant, Market Organization, is willing to get the mark INSTAGEM registered in International Class 41 for ‘Video Editing.’
According to Instagram, its social media platform was launched in 2010, and since then, it has been consistently using the INSTAGRAM trademark in connection with its platform in the US. It also owns a variety of Trademark Applications and registrations for the mark INSTAGRAM covering several goods and services. Besides Instagram’s social networking platform, the trademark applications and registrations include –
1.     Providing use of online temporary non-downloadable software for allowing the transmission of images, audiovisual, and video content
2.     Both downloadable and non-downloadable computer software for modifying the appearance and allowing the transmission of images, audio-visual, and video content
Instagram has alleged that Market Organization’s services are quite similar to the ones it offers corresponding to the INSTAGRAM mark. Instagram is now opposing this trademark registration as it believes that the applicant’s proposed trademark is deceptively similar to the INSTAGRAM mark, and the same holds immense potential for creating confusion in the minds of the customers or users. According to Instagram, the customers might also end up thinking that the applicant is or has been connected or affiliated with Instagram. Another possibility lies in the customers believing that the applicant’s services provided under the proposed trademark have been authorized, sponsored, endorsed, or licensed by Instagram. Additionally, it has also stated that the INSTAGEM mark shall dilute the INSTAGRAM mark and cause great damage to its reputation.

All in all, Instagram wants the trademark registration of the INSTAGEM mark to get refused.

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Tuesday, 7 July 2020

Aurangabad Research Scholars Win Patent for Innovative Thermal Imaging Device


Patent

Five research scholars and scientists from Aurangabad have quite recently won a Patent from Australia for an exceedingly innovative non-contact type thermal imaging system, which is a cost-effective thermal imaging system with multiple biomedical applications.
With the help of their innovation, the research scholars are looking forward to reducing the dependency of India’s healthcare sector on expensive thermal imaging devices coming from abroad. The researchers have mentioned that this system has been designed and developed for diagnostic support leading to disease detection. According to them, the system is capable of avoiding invasive diagnostic methods such as biopsies in the initial stages.
Shazia Shaikh, one of the research scholars, who is pursuing her Ph.D., said that while she was doing the M.Phil work on the processing of thermal images for disease detection, she found it arduous to obtain the thermal images of skin cancer. She had to get some of the images from F J Gonzalez, who is a research scientist from San Luis Potosí in Mexico.
While working on the innovation, Shazia Shaikh realized that buying a thermal camera can prove to be a costly affair for many research students. Therefore, they all started working efficiently on the possibility of designing and developing an effective and affordable thermal camera to generate their database of thermal images. The idea and concept were well supported by Shaikh’s guide, Dr. Ramesh Manza, who is an assistant professor in the computer science department of Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University and Dr. Nazneen Akhter, who is an assistant professor at Maulana Azad College’s computer science department.
The research scholars have stated that the device is ready to be used for medical applications, where painless, non-invasive, and contactless diagnostic support is needed for studying the underlying health conditions, which are marked by the changes in the body surface temperature. They believe that the device can indeed play a crucial role in the early detection of diseases like diabetes, skin cancer, to name a few.
The fact that the thermal imaging system may reduce the frequencies of invasive diagnosis has impressed the concerned patenting authorities in this scenario. For view source: https://www.kashishipr.com/blog/amt-wins-patents-for-chemical-vapor-smoothing-in-europe/

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Thursday, 2 July 2020

AMT Wins Patents for Chemical Vapor Smoothing in Europe



AMT (Additive Manufacturing Technologies – the global leader specializing in the safe and sustainable post-processing solutions of additively manufactured parts) has quite recently got its core portfolio of patents for chemical vapor smoothing granted.
AMT’s patents focus on the novel and inventive apparatus, which is used in the chemical vapor smoothing of thermoplastic polymer parts produced from composite, flexible, and rigid subsets, like thermoplastic polyurethane, polyamide, and glass-filled derivatives, along with the newly announced polypropylene.
Significantly, the IP enables multiple consumables to be used to process the parts, which, in turn, allows AMT to remain flexible corresponding to new regulatory requirements and material offerings.
AMT’s UK patent GB2560073B, granted on 17th June 2020, and both the complimentary German utility models – 20 2017 007 255.6 and 20 2017 007 250.5, granted on 25th June 2020, provide retrospective Intellectual Property Protection to the 2017 filing date. The company is now expecting the corresponding patents to be granted by the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and the European Patent Office (EPO) in the coming future.
AMT’s patents are granted after its five years of research and development at the University of Sheffield (UK), along with the extensive commercialization of its PostPro3D machines with its global network of partners. The patents granted highlight the fact that AMT’s PostPro3D is indeed a differentiated and unique technology.
The CEO of AMT, Joseph Crabtree, mentioned in a recent statement delivered that the company is fulfilling all of its goals with one milestone at a time and a clear vision for the future. According to Crabtree, PostPro3D is a decided leader in fully sustainable, safe, and automated surface finishing systems for all the applications and materials in the industry. He further said that it is indeed terrific to see that AMT has efficiently secured its core patents after many years of hard work and development. He believes that AMT is recognized in the market for its unique inventions, and its overall strategy is undoubtedly based around its strong IP position.
AMT keeps collaborating closely with its partners and customers to maximize the delivered value to the industry and shall continue searching for solutions in the future as well to bring additive manufacturing a step closer to an industry-wide accepted manufacturing solution. For view source: https://www.kashishipr.com/blog/amt-wins-patents-for-chemical-vapor-smoothing-in-europe/
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Wednesday, 1 July 2020

What will happen if you are late in Getting your Trademark Renewed?

Trademark Renewed

In most of the nations across the globe, the duration of Trademark Protection for registered trademarks is ten years; however, indefinite trademark protection can be achieved if the registered trademark is renewed once every ten years. Lateness in filing a trademark renewal application can lead to many complications for the owner, like increased fees, penalty, or losing the protection of the Registered Trademark altogether. Remember, loss of trademark protection is the most serious repercussion of failing to file your trademark renewal on time. Let us now make ourselves familiar with all the risks involved in the same scenario so that you can understand the importance of filing your trademark renewals on time.
1.     Someone else may take the registered trademark
Although it is a rare occurrence – however, there may be a scenario where a competitor snaps up the mark and registers it or a similar one as his or her own. Without any second thoughts, the marks, which are identical or similar to the already existing registered trademarks, aren’t registrable. But, if a trademark is no longer registered, then similar or identical marks can get registered. If there aren’t any forms of pre-existing rights interfering with the competitor’s Trademark Registration of the mark, then it shall never get rejected. This scenario, therefore, leaves the bright possibility of you losing your registered trademark to your competitor if you fail to file its renewal.
2.     Trademark re-registration may not be permitted
Trademark protection may also be lost altogether if, after failing to get a trademark renewed and looking to re-register it, a similar or identical mark gets registered in the meantime. According to EUIPO’s set of guidelines and regulations, a proposed trademark will be denied registration if it is identical or similar to an already existing trademark or interferes with the pre-existing rights. If no such problems existed while the mark was registered but arise after the passing of the renewal date, then all the attempts made to re-register it shall be denied.
3.     Limited classes
If in case, a mark similar or identical to yours gets registered in the Nice Classes, in which your mark was originally registered, then re-registration in the same classes shall not be permitted. According to EUIPO’s set of guidelines and requirements, if a proposed trademark seeks registration corresponding to the goods where there is an already existing registered trademark, then the registration shall be denied. Hence, if you miss your renewal date and go ahead with re-registering the mark at some later stage, then the goods or services against which you intend to use the same may be limited.
4.     Limited countries
In the same manner, if you fail to renew a trademark in multiple countries and a new similar or identical mark gets registered in some of the countries in the meantime, then re-registration at some later stage may geographically be limited as well. The consequences of this inability to re-register your mark in some specific nations can be harsh, which, in turn, would hinder your business profits and prospects significantly.
5.     Late trademark renewal fees
Irrespective of whether any of the above mentioned potential issues come into action or not, the owners who delay the renewal of their registered trademarks undoubtedly encounter additional costs in the form of late fees. In general, the national IP offices do give a grace period after the renewal date, in which the renewals can still be filed. However, waiting until that moment shall bring in greater official charges as compared to filing the renewals on time. For view source: https://www.kashishipr.com/blog/university-of-washington-wins-patent-for-its-innovative-air-filtration-technology/

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