Intellectual Property Filings Improve Globally Despite Covid-19 Pandemic

Intellectual Property Filings Improve Globally Despite Covid-19 Pandemic

At the global level, Intellectual Property (IP) filings, including trademarks, patents, and industrial designs, rebounded last year (as per the latest data presented by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), thereby indicating the resilience of human innovation and creation despite the Covid-19 pandemic.

On the contrary, the filing activity of both patent and Trademark Applications during the Global Financial Crisis of 2008-2009 (the Great Recession) had contracted sharply.

As per the World Intellectual Property Indicators report (compiling new data from 150 national and regional authorities), the trademark filing activity rose by 13.7% globally, patents by 1.6%, and industrial designs by 2%.

India has shown a pretty decent improvement in filings related to IP, with higher applications in trademarks (over 15%) and patents (10%), specifically driven by the ones filed in the pharmaceutical sector in 2020.

In 2020, the IP Office in China recorded the highest number of trademark applications. Also, India left behind Japan to secure the 5th position in terms of trademark filing activity.

The ultimate factor influencing such strong growth in the global trademark filing activity is the robust growth in products and services related to pharmaceuticals, surgical, dental, and medical goods, and advertising and business management.

Concerning pharmaceuticals, the number of filings increased from 4.1% in 2019 to 4.6% in 2020, while those of surgical, medical, and dental goods increased from 1.5% to 2.3%. Such trends were mirrored by some nations that saw significant increases in their respective trademark filing activities. For instance, India’s near about 15.4% growth in its trademark filing activity was driven majorly by the applications filed in the pharmaceutical sXctor.

Furthermore, global patent filing activity returned to growth last year after experiencing the first dip in a decade in 2019 due to a decline in China. In 2020, the IP office in China reported 1.5 million Patent Applications, followed by the United States, Japan, the Republic of Korea, and the European Patent Office (EPO). These five offices, together, accounted for 85.1% of the patent applications filed throughout the world.

Among the top ten IP offices, only three nations, including the Republic of Korea (3.6%), India (5.9%), and China (6.9%), recorded growth in the applications filed in 2020.

The Director-General at WIPO, Daren Tang, expressed his views on the strong growth in trademark filings (in particular) in 2020. He said that the double-digit growth in the trademark filing activity shows how enterprises worldwide have brought new products and services to the market despite the massive economic shook.

It is interesting to note that IP’s center of gravity has now shifted to Asia, considering the number of applications filed from the region as per the latest data recorded by WIPO. A decade ago, half of the overall ten IP-related applications were filed in Asia, and, in 2020, this number went close to seven. For more visit: https://www.trademarkmaldives.com

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South Africa & India Ask EU to Break Silence on the TRIPS Waiver for Covid-19 Vaccines

South Africa & India Ask EU to Break Silence on the TRIPS Waiver for Covid-19 Vaccines

After several weeks of deadlock, South Africa and India have asked the European Union (EU) to put forward a clear solution and break silence on the TRIPS waiver for Covid-19 vaccines and drugs instead of only blocking the proposal that looks forward to ensuring that people in developing and poor nations are protected from the pandemic.

According to the Indian officials, in recent weeks, the EU has come to the negotiating table to work on a possible way out with various sources in Geneva, hinting that the trading bloc might come around to agreeing to limit the flexibility to patent waiver only for Covid-19 vaccines.

To date, the proposal put forward by India and South Africa has been backed by more than 100 members of the World Trade Organization (WTO). It looks forward to providing copyright, patent, and other Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) waivers for vaccines, medical devices, and therapeutics.

As of now, the EU has recommended that the vaccine manufacturers who can and are ready to produce the Covid-19 vaccination shots may start producing them without worrying about obtaining Patent Protection.

The WTO secretariat is eager to find an adequate solution way ahead of this month’s ministerial meeting in Geneva, although the details are very much unlikely to be finalized in the coming three weeks. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the Chief at WTO, is eager to deliver a trade and health package at the ministerial meeting and is looking forward to receiving support from different countries, including India, to back the fisheries agreement in return.

The EU, Japan, Switzerland, and the UK are the only nations opposing the proposal and are not even willing to discuss the draft floated by South Africa and India. Also, within the EU, only a handful of nations like Germany are opposing the proposal.

Even though South Africa has its ‘vaccine hub,’ it doesn’t seem to have extracted many benefits from it, keeping aside the mRNA facility fulfilling the requirements of other African nations.

India, on its part, is keen to find a solution to the vaccination issue at the earliest though many officials have claimed that ratcheting up the demand has implied that developed nations, at the minimum, stop blocking the supply of the key inputs and look forward to addressing the major vaccine inequality. Furthermore, India has also got the EU to suggest using the route of compulsory licensing, which enables opting for the patent waiver in the case of national emergencies; and this is something that the developed nations had always opposed.

As per the Government sources, multiple options are being looked at by various developing nations, and some of them may go ahead with the compulsory licensing route. For more visit: https://www.trademarkmaldives.com

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PhonePe Decides to File a Fresh Lawsuit Against BharatPe Alleging Trademark Infringement

PhonePe Decides to File a Fresh Lawsuit Against BharatPe Alleging Trademark Infringement

PhonePe (a digital payments and financial services company headquartered in Bangalore, India) has recently decided to file a fresh lawsuit against BharatPe’s ‘buy now, pay later’ platform known as PostPe over Trademark Infringement. For this, PhonePe is now withdrawing its previous petition (over PostPe violating the ‘Pe’ trademark of the brand) filed in the Bombay High Court.

The Flipkart-owned PhonePe said in a recent statement delivered that the company would file a fresh lawsuit against BharatPe and continue opposing the use of ‘PostPe’ or ‘postpe’ mark ardently.

PhonePe had earlier approached the Bombay High Court to seek an injunction for restraining ‘Resilient Innovations’ (which operates BharatPe) from misusing its Registered Trademarks by using and promoting the ‘PostPe’ or ‘postpe’ mark.

The Court, during the hearing, noted that Resilient Innovations’ PostPe mark is indeed visually, structurally, and phonetically similar to the PhonePe mark, due to which, even it thought that the ‘PostPe’ or ‘postpe’ mark is a natural evolution of the word PhonePe and has emanated from the same. However, for addressing some specific observations noted by the Court in the pleadings filed by PhonePe, the company is now withdrawing the lawsuit. It will be seen filing a fresh suit for opposing the adoption of the mark ‘PostPe’ or ‘postpe’ mark by Resilient Innovations. PhonePe said that while allowing the withdrawal of the lawsuit and keeping the contentions and rights of both parties open, the Court granted it the liberty to come up with a fresh lawsuit.

A BharatPe spokesperson said in a statement delivered that the company doesn’t wish to comment on any part of the recent proceedings in the Bombay High Court that haven’t been recorded in the order passed. He further added that the company would eagerly wait for the receipt of the order that has recently been passed by the Bombay High Court to maintain the dignity of the entire legal process. He also mentioned that the bottom line of the case remains that PhonePe has now withdrawn its previous lawsuit, and it is needless to say that BharatPe would continue defending any legal action that PhonePe threatens to use against it.

In the meantime, PostPe is heavily advertising itself across various mediums. Recently, it came up with the ‘De Dena Aaram Se’ campaign, which is live across multiple TV and digital channels – throughout the ongoing ICC World Cup 2021 and the festive season. For more visit: https://www.trademarkmaldives.com

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Parus Files Second Lawsuit Against Samsung Alleging Patent Infringement

Parus Files Second Lawsuit Against Samsung Alleging Patent Infringement

Parus Holdings Inc., a company specializing in creating voice-driven applications, has recently filed its second lawsuit alleging Patent Infringement against Samsung Electronics America, Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. in the US Federal District Court for the Western District of Texas. According to the lawsuit, Samsung has infringed upon Parus’ patents concerning device control and voice-browsing technology. The infringed upon patents, as mentioned in the lawsuit, include US Patent No. 6,721,705, US Patent No. 8,185,402, and US Patent No. 7,386,455. As of now, Parus is looking forward to seeking all available remedies, which include damages against Samsung for all of the sales it made by infringing upon the patents in question.

The lawsuit asserts that the infringement on the part of Samsung has been ‘willful.’ Parus now wants the Court to make Samsung pay treble damages along with its attorneys’ fees. It also wants Samsung to be permanently restrained from infringing upon the said patents.

This is the second time that Parus has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Samsung over the use of Parus’ voice-user interface technologies for retrieving information. In 2019, Parus had filed lawsuits against Samsung, Apple, and Google in the Western District of Texas for patent infringement over the ‘431 and ‘084 patents. This case is still pending as it also involves the infringement of various other forms of Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs). Parus has asserted different patents in some other district court cases as well, which are at present pending in the Western District of Texas against Google, Apple, and Microsoft.

Taj Reneau, the Chairman and CEO at Parus, said in a recent statement delivered that the company holds a responsibility towards its shareholders and customers corresponding to the investments that it has made in coming up with innovative technologies. He further added that Parus, at all times, aims at vigorously safeguarding its valuable patent portfolio and other Intellectual Property (IP) assets. He also mentioned that Parus is now looking forward to presenting its case in court and prevailing in the said matter.

Parus Holdings, Inc. is a privately-held company founded in 1997 and headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. It is a pioneer of voice assistants and voice-enabled unified communications, which includes voice search, messaging, collaboration, and video and real-time communications for different mobile communities and even more than 50,000 business customers. What has kept Parus at the forefront of the voice communications industry for more than twenty years now include its patent solutions, its deep understanding of the requirements and challenges of potential customers, and its passion for delivering outstanding customer service. For more visit: https://www.trademarkmaldives.com

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Mondelez Threatens Primal Pantry for Exploiting the Trademark of its Milka Chocolate Range

Mondelez Threatens Primal Pantry for Exploiting the Trademark of its Milka Chocolate Range

Mondelez, a US-based multinational confectionery company, has recently threatened legal action against Primal Pantry, a London-based vegan snack maker, over the color of its Milka chocolate range. Mondelez has alleged that the cocoa bar owned by Primal Pantry exploits the trademark of Milka.

The lawyers fighting the case for Mondelez are now demanding that the use of lilac packaging in Primal Pantry’s cocoa bar must stop, and for every time the company infringes upon the trademark of Mondelez, it must pay £5,200 as penalty. On the other hand, Primal Pantry, owned by Nurture Brands, denies hurting or exploiting Mondelez’s trademark.

Adam Draper, the Managing Director at Nurture Brands, said in a statement delivered that the cocoa snack bars were launched in the market in 2016 in a wide range of colors for having a good differentiation on the shelf together.  He further said that the packaging of the cocoa bars is neither in the same color as that of Mondelez’s Milka chocolate range nor in the same spectrum. He also mentioned that Mondelez, despite the legal letter, has not provided any evidence to prove that the packaging color is similar enough to infringe upon the Milka trademark.

Nurture Brands, founded in London, supplies snacks that are plant-based all across Europe. It has employed 26 people in its Barbican headquarters and runs a factory in northeast England.

Mr. Draper is of the view that if Mondelez could prove that the packaging color of the cocoa bar is in the same color range as Milka, he would cooperate with the company, but in no case would he throw away all his products in the EU for an irrelevant justification. He also estimated that recalling the products and removing all packaging that at present is in circulation could cost somewhere between £30,000 and £50,000 without factoring in all the fines.

Mondelez owns many widely-known brands and names, such as Toblerone and Oreo. Even the British brands Kenco and Cadbury are a part of its empire. Cadbury, its subsidiary, lost an appeal in 2019 to safeguard the specific shade of purple that it uses to wrap its range of chocolates.

A spokesperson for Mondelez said that the company owns a Color Trademark in Europe for the unique lilac-colored packaging of Milka and its other brands. He further said that for safeguarding the value of all the brands, which have taken hundreds of years to earn goodwill in the market, Mondelez expresses its concerns to third parties whenever they use a protected brand element. He also mentioned that Mondelez has opened up conversations with Primal Pantry to try and resolve the issue amicably. For more visit: https://www.trademarkmaldives.com

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GM & Ford Look Forward to Settling Trademark Dispute over Hands-Free Driving

GM & Ford Look Forward to Settling Trademark Dispute over Hands-Free Driving

In the present era, semi-autonomous features like crash-avoidance technology and hands-free driving are becoming hotly contested battlegrounds as car manufacturers seek to boost the prices. In the same context, there’s a trademark dispute between two automakers that we are going to discuss here.

Ford Motor Company (a US-based multinational automobile manufacturer founded by Henry Ford) and General Motors (a US-based automotive multinational corporation founded by William C. Durant) are looking forward to settling a Trademark Dispute (out of court) over the branding of their hands-free driving technology.

The lawyers for both the companies involved have informed a San Francisco federal judge that they are attempting to work well on the settlement terms and would undoubtedly report back to court within two months if in case an accord isn’t reached.

The counterattack legal battle began this year in July when General Motors sued Ford for infringing upon its trademarked driver-assistance technology. According to the company, it took legal action against Ford to safeguard its ‘Super-Cruise’ brand and ‘Cruise,’ (which is the name of its self-driving affiliate called Cruise LLC) after Ford gave a new name to its Co-Pilot360 automated driving system – ‘BlueCruise.’

Ford hit back at GM by asking the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to deprive the company of the two trademarks in question. It argued by saying that the whole automobile industry should be allowed to use the word ‘cruise’ freely for describing the driver-assistance technologies. To make its point stronger, the company also stated that the USPTO doesn’t usually register words or phrases as trademarks that are commonly used.

The first time GM introduced Super Cruise, which enables the drivers to take their hands off the wheel for brief periods, was on the Cadillac CT6 ( a full-size luxury car manufactured by Cadillac) in 2017. Ever since then, General Motors has expanded the technology significantly to enable cars to change lanes on their own. The company also has plans to offer this feature in more models. In 2020, Ford disclosed its plans of offering its BlueCruise hands-free driving technology in its F-150 pickup truck, which is also the top-selling vehicle in the United States. Furthermore, it is also offering the technology in its electric Mustang Mach-E as an over-the-air software update. For more visit: https://www.trademarkmaldives.com

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Pearson Files Copyright Infringement Lawsuit against Former Partner Chegg

Pearson Files Copyright Infringement Lawsuit against Former Partner Chegg

Pearson Education (a British-owned education publishing company providing assessment services to students, schools, and corporations) has recently filed a Copyright Infringement lawsuit against its former partner, Chegg (an American education technology company). According to Pearson, Chegg infringed upon its copyright only after a few months following the end of the partnership between the two companies by selling answers to the end-of-chapter questions included in Pearson textbooks.

The lawsuit, filed in New Jersey’s District Court, looks forward to seeking unspecified damages, along with a court order that would restrain Chegg from using the answer sets from Pearson materials. Jonathan Band, a lawyer and an expert on the subject matter of Intellectual Property (IP), said in a statement delivered that the case in question could not only weaken Chegg but also have implications for all the study guides that are based on existing texts and stick to the general selection and arrangement of such texts.

As per various reports, over the past year, the subscription base of Chegg grew by 67%. Many students even attended online classes during the pandemic. Currently, the company owns a market capitalization of $11.1 billion and has 6.6 million users.

Pearson’s copyright infringement lawsuit includes 150 of its textbooks – for which Chegg provides many answers by using the language that is copied or paraphrased from the original questions; for instance, Chegg Study provides even more than 700 answers for questions included in a widely-known biology textbook, known as Campbell Biology.

A Chegg spokesperson in response recently said that the company would fight all allegations by Pearson vigorously as it is in full compliance with the Copyright Law. He further mentioned that Chegg has been helping a lot of students in learning and thriving for many years now by creating a transformative digital learning platform that aids in learning more at a lower cost and in a lesser time. He also stated that the partnership between the two companies ended this year on May 31; however, he didn’t specify the type of partnership they shared, neither did the Pearson spokesperson.

According to Band, determining copyright infringement, in this case, could be tricky. He believes that the case is made even more complex as it refers to nonfiction texts, which often face difficulties in getting the tag of copyrighted material. Let us understand this with an example – in a chemistry or history book, there are only a definite number of logical ways to present the material. The individual paragraphs or words are undoubtedly protected; however, if an individual is only presenting the info in some way or the other using his own set of words, the first author wouldn’t have a monopoly over the way to present information.

The lawsuit indeed expresses high levels of tension between the two companies involved. Recently, Pearson came up with a subscription service that provides the students with access to thousands of textbooks at $14.99 per month; thereby, giving tough competition to Chegg. For more visit: https://www.trademarkmaldives.com

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Australia Supports Waiving Intellectual Property Protection for Covid-19 Vaccines

Australia Supports Waiving Intellectual Property Protection for Covid-19 Vaccines

Australia’s Minister for Trade, Tourism, and Investment, Dan Tehan, said in a statement delivered that the nation will support an international push to waive the Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) for Covid-19 vaccines. The decision came as the rising infection rate across the globe is prolonging the pandemic and creating new deadly variants of the virus.

Both South Africa and India have led the campaign and put in a lot of effort to change the rules of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and make it convenient for the low and middle-income nations to manufacture and sell affordable generic copies of the COVID-19 vaccines, which are produced by pharmaceutical giants such as Pfizer.

Even the United States threw its weight behind the proposal earlier this year by saying that extraordinary measures were required to boost the global production of Covid-19 vaccines for helping fight the spread of the virus.

Australia’s position, in this scenario, has slightly always been more ambiguous. Although the federal government appreciated the announcement made by Biden’s administration and has time and again expressed its support for negotiations on the matter, it has fallen short of expressing its support for the waiver itself. Various advocacy groups that have been urging the government to back the waiver for quite a while now met Mr. Tehan recently and said that he made a private commitment concerning the nation supporting the proposal. Mr. Tehan seemed to confirm that position publicly when the reporters asked about clarifying Australia’s stance. He said that when it comes to Covid-19, the nation will always support the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) waiver. He further said that Australia would continue working efficiently in Geneva for expanding the global production of vaccines, which would make everyone across the globe have access to the vaccine and keep them safe.

The human rights and advocacy groups campaigning on the issue stated that the government’s position shifted in this case. For instance, this year, in June, Mr. Tehan stated that the Australian government wasn’t opposed to the proposal and was well prepared to look at the vaccine waiver; however, it went no further on the matter.

The Convener of the Australian Fair Trade and Investment Network, Patricia Ranald, welcomed Mr. Tehan’s change from support on the matter to actually supporting the TRIPS waiver by saying that “actions speak louder than words.”

The WTO meeting is making progress as a critical one for the nations promoting the waiver. The waiver has received immense support from the less wealthy, developing countries; however, many European countries blocked the proposal earlier this year at a WTO meeting as they thought that waiving IP Protection might discourage the pharmaceutical companies from investing money into R&D.

The Australian federal government has also drawn attention to the fact that the waiver might not be sufficient in itself to increase the production of Covid-19 vaccines across the globe, primarily because most nations don’t have production facilities at an advanced level and skilled labor required to produce them.

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Square Inc. Joins Cross-Licensing Platform to Reduce Patent Suits

Square Inc. Joins Cross-Licensing Platform to Reduce Patent Suits

Square Inc., an American company specializing in providing financial services and facilitating digital payments, has recently joined a cross-licensing platform with other technology companies to lessen Patent Lawsuits over cryptocurrency and encourage the growth of digital currencies. According to the company, it is becoming a part of the Open Innovation Network, wherein all the members agree for royalty-free access to patents for open source technology.

In 2020, Square established the Cryptocurrency Open Patent Alliance, in which all the members are required to agree towards not suing each other over patents. It also provides a shared patent library for access to the underlying technologies.

Max Sills, the Counsel at Square and the General Manager of the Cryptocurrency Alliance, said in a recent statement delivered that the company is looking forward to avoiding long-drawn-out legal battles in the present rapid time of growth. He also stated that the ultimate goal of joining the Open Source Network is to have a non-aggression pact in place that underpins the new digital currencies and tools without which one can’t do business in the market.

The Network includes technologies like Hadoop and Linux kernel that are widely used to store and process large datasets.

Keith Bergelt, the Chief Executive of the Open Innovation Network, said that when it comes to dealing with core functionality, companies or individuals should not sue one another. According to him, the idea should always be to build one’s differentiation around the core, which won’t impair anyone from establishing a business and only safeguard them from being sued on what is fundamentally open.

The Open Innovation Network was created to safeguard the Linux operating system from patent litigation lawsuits. It even has more than 1,000 patents at present of its own that all the members get royalty-free. It was founded in 2005 by companies including Sony Corp., Red Hat Inc., and International Business Machines Corp., and currently, it has more than 3,500 members across the globe, such as Oracle Corp., Microsoft Corp., and Alphabet Inc.’s Google. In the past decade, the Network has grown significantly to include energy, automotive, and medical device fields.

Square isn’t the only company trying to reduce patent suits that have bedeviled other industries, specifically in the field of technology. Litigation disputes over patents, like the ones involving medical devices and smartphones, among other industries, can cost an enormous amount of money in legal fees.

Many other groups have also been set up to address such challenges; however, each of them focuses on a separate issue concerning patent disputes. For instance, the Open Crypto Alliance was formed to identify Patent Applications to challenge or oppose, such as by providing appropriate information to the patent examiners to use as a legal basis for rejecting the applications. For more visit: https://www.trademarkmaldives.com

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South Africa Grants World’s First-Ever Patent with AI as Inventor

South Africa Grants World’s First-Ever Patent with AI as Inventor

Inventions created by Artificial Intelligence (AI) are the next big thing in the field of innovation. The question, “To whom can a patent be granted for AI inventions?” has been a part of many debates for a pretty long period now. Surprisingly and interestingly, South Africa has recently become the world’s first-ever nation to grant a patent that names AI as its inventor. It has also named the AI’s owner as the owner of the patent invention.

The patent has been secured by the University of Surrey’s professor, Ryan Abbott, and his team. They faced several issues with the Patent Offices across the globe over the dire need to recognize AI as the inventor of patented inventions for many years.

All this while, Abbott was representing Dr. Stephen Thaler, who is the creator of an artificial neural system known as ‘Dabus.’ According to Thaler, Dabus is the sole inventor of a food container capable of improving heat transfer and grip.

Since 2018, Abbott, along with his team, has filed Patent Applications listing Dabus as the inventor in more than ten jurisdictions worldwide, including the United States, the United Kingdom, and the European Union. Last year, the High Court in Wales and England supported the decision of the UK Intellectual Property Office (UKIPO) by rejecting the patent application. In its final ruling, the Court stated that although Dabus created the inventions, it couldn’t be granted a patent as it wasn’t a natural person. Even the European Patent Office (EPO) and the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) rejected the application on the same grounds.

In a recent statement delivered, the Director of the Institute for People-Centred AI at the University of Surrey, Professor Adrian Hilton, said the world is “moving from an age in which invention was the preserve of people to an era where machines are capable of realizing the inventive step.”

Abbott strongly believes that the current situation in law is no longer fit for purpose and could easily put the investment in AI at huge risk. He also pointed towards the increasing use of AI in research and development (R&D) to come up with new drug compounds and support drug repurposing. In such scenarios, he stated that there could be an invention eligible for securing Patent Protection but not an individual eligible to be an inventor. According to Abbott, if what is written in the previous line means that a patent won’t be granted, then companies like Novartis, Siemens, or DeepMind, all of which are investing in AI, won’t be able to use AI in their respective areas.

Welcoming the decision of South Africa, Abbott said that this outcome indeed showcases an understanding of the utmost importance that lies in motivating people to make, develop, and use AI for generating socially valuable innovations. He further added that this decision would serve as a big example to the rest of the world concerning the use of AI in generating human benefits. For more visit: https://www.trademarkmaldives.com

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