Our Blog – What moves us
Sunrise Period for the Unitary Patent started
On March 1, 2023, the sunrise period began, the 3-month phase before the start of the Unitary Patent and the Unified Patent Court on June 1, 2023. From now on, it is possible to file opt-out requests and thus exclude the jurisdiction of the UPC for existing EP...
Ip2 White Paper on German Employee Inventor Law
Another pitfall for companies from abroad Amid all the enthusiasm about a successful innovation, it is easy to forget that every invention also involves at least one inventor. Even if circumstances differ greatly from country to country, inventors are entitled to...
ECJ: No chains for green biotechnology
In its ruling C 688-23 of today (1) the European Court of Justice decided that Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) produced by in vitro mutagenesis continue to be exempt from Directive 2001/18/EC (2) and are therefore not subject to the strict rules on transgenic...
IP2’s Christmas Blog
All I want for Christmas … is cash It's that time of year again, when "Fairytale of New York" and "Last Christmas" fight for the crown, which of the two is once again the most popular Christmas song in Europe. The Pogues' quirky song just happens to have something to...
Brain organoids – Can thinking tissue be patentable
Admittedly, this question is initially hypothetical Brain organoids are 3D tissue models that replicate one or more regions of the brain. They can overcome the shortcomings of conventional post-mortem brain tissue and animal brain tissue models and provide clinically...
Can AI be inventor?
..From KI as a tool to KI as an inventor The German software pioneer SAP defines artificial intelligence as a generic term for applications in which machines perform human-like intelligence services. This includes machine learning, natural language processing (NLP)...
Curevac versus Biontech
What we know... As various print media reported unanimously this week, the Tübingen-based biotech company CureVac has filed a patent infringement suit against the Corona vaccine manufacturer BioNTech SE and two subsidiaries at the Düsseldorf Regional Court. CureVac...
From Russia with(out) love
Russia dismisses patent protection for patentees from “unfriendly” countries By decree, Russia has de facto abolished the protection of patents whose owners are registered in, do business in, or have citizenship of so-called “unfriendly” countries. In concrete terms,...
No exclusivity for delicate baby skin
The fact that it is difficult to protect one's packaging from imitation without enjoying trademark protection in return was once again demonstrated this week by a decision of the Düsseldorf Regional Court: A case of unfair competition? The Soest-based company Bübchen...
German act on employees‘ inventions – a compliance case
Balance of claims Since 1870, employee inventions have been controversially discussed in Germany. According to the "labor law theory", employee inventions as work results should exclusively belong to the employer. The "patent law theory" sees the rights of employees...
One vaccine to rule them all – the pan-corona vaccine
New variants of SARS-CoV2 have hampered our attempts to control the pandemic in recent month. The alpha variant, which emerged in the UK in late 2020, was a driving factor for a devastating wave of infections and high number of deaths in Europe at the beginning of...
ip2 sponsoring Jethro Tull
15 years of open-air festival at the Castle of Rheydt After a one-year absence caused by the pandemic, the Summer Music at Rheydt Castle could take place for the 15th time this year. Until one day before the start on August 19 - the stage and lighting system were...
Sunrise for the unified patent court
As explained in general in our earlier post, dated December 06, 2020, it looks like the Unified patent court is close to come – probably by the End of 2022. Three months before the entry into force of the agreement – the so-called „sunrise period“ – it will be...
Sound marks: much ado about something
The purpose of trademarks is to distinguish the goods and services of one company from those of another. Whether a sign can be registered as a trademark therefore depends to a large extent on whether the relevant public can recognize an indication of origin in it. ...
Again: Bunnies in for a rough ride
Another bad day for bunnies. This time it was the purple milk bunny and for a change it was not about the infringement of trademark rights, but about a violation of the labeling obligation for food, which the judges at the Bremen Regional Court had to decide on (12 O...
Our Authors
Bernd Fabry is founder and CEO of IP2. He is a qualified German and European Patent and Trademark Attorney. He has more than 25 years company experience as Head of IP departments.
We are pleased that our Scientific Adviser, Dr. Martin Fabry from the University of Cambridge, will now report regularly on new developments in this exciting field.
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