Insights

The Royal Mint, the UK’s official coin maker, has opened a new factory in South Wales to recover gold from e-waste, and is aiming to position itself as a leader in sustainably sourced precious metals in the UK. More than 50 million tonnes of electronic waste are produced globally per year, yet less than 20% of it is properly collected and recycled.

In the latest trade mark dispute to hit the news, UK-based beauty salon company StripTweeze Ltd (trading as ‘nkd’) is facing opposition from French beauty conglomerate L’Oréal.

During opposition proceedings it is standard practice for the Patentee to file a range of auxiliary requests, to provide them with fall-back positions should their main request not be allowed. In many cases, some or all of these requests are never discussed by the Opposition Division. In these circumstances, what becomes of these never-before-discussed auxiliary requests (often called “carry-over requests”) during an appeal? On this point, the EPO Boards of Appeal have some diverging opinions.

Over the last few years, artificial intelligence (AI), has transformed from a relatively niche area into a powerful tool that is used in many different areas of technology. The applications in which AI is used are diverse: from search engines to autonomous vehicles, from gaming to health and medicine, from finance to creative and generative tools. This is something we at Dehns see with our clients – increasingly AI is forming a part of many different inventions across a range of technical fields.

Logan Paul and KSI (Olajide Olatunji), both renowned YouTube personalities and creators of the Prime energy drink, have landed themselves in hot water with the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee due to the latest branding of their drinks bottles.

23 June 2024 is International Women in Engineering Day (IWED). This is a day for celebrating and promoting the amazing achievements of female engineers around the world.

Following a seven year battle between McDonald’s and the Irish fast food restaurant group, Supermac’s, the General Court of the European Union has handed down a decision to partially annul an earlier decision of the EUIPO’s Board of Appeal, thereby cancelling McDonald’s European Union trade mark (EUTM) registration for its BIG MAC mark insofar as it covers certain products.

In the first order since the landmark decision of 10 April 2024, the Court of Appeal comments on its ability to determine its own panel composition.  Its position remains unchanged: a panel of three legally-qualified judges is allowable for proceedings without technical matters.  The Court has dismissed a request to refer the matter to the CJEU.

In a UPC first, the Court of Appeal has issued an order regarding the granting of stays.  The Court sets out a prevailing principle that stay requests will not be granted.  An exception to this principle is when a rapid decision from the EPO is expected, but the Court may exercise its discretion on whether to actually stay the proceedings.

A detailed decision from the UPC Court of Appeal takes a principled approach to public access applications and provides valuable guidelines.  However, the Court may have set itself up for a bigger contest on panel composition, having sat without any technically-qualified judges.