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World Intellectual Property Indicators 2020 or how all roads lead to China (I): patents
Last December, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) published an essential document: the World Intellectual Property Indicators 2020. The Report provides an integral and in-depth account of global trends in connection with registration, grant, validity and economic sectors, among others, linked to patents, utility models, trademarks, industrial designs, geographical indications, plant varieties and creative industry. […]
Final act: will the Supreme Court lend bullfighting a helping hand?
For many, bullfighting is an art, but this does not necessarily mean that a bullfight is a work in which the bullfighter holds a copyright: the Supreme Court is to decide whether a bullfight can be an original work and is therefore protectable by copyright. The Supreme Court has ruled on the copyright protection of […]
Shall we play protecting our products? Design as a differentiating factor in the toy industry
Fakes are a major headache for toy companies. Counterfeiters, who even manage to obtain industrial property rights in their designs, are becoming increasingly more sophisticated. Let’s look at a few cases. Despite the general drop in consumption following lockdown in 2020, the toy industry has managed to emerge stronger than ever by taking advantage of […]
Debate over television series based on real events: “Biopics” and honor, privacy and publicity rights
Following the debate that has arisen with the famous series The Crown, the British culture secretary has proposed that a warning be added to clarify that it is a fictional series based on historic events. This poses a few interesting questions: Is it necessary to obtain consent from the people involved to make a series […]
EU Design legislation under scrutiny: is a new Directive in sight?
The European Commission has published a report evaluating EU legislation on design protection, which assesses the overall functioning of the design protection system both at EU and national level, in what may be the first step towards a new Directive. By way of a quick reminder, designs protect the appearance of the product itself and/or […]
The value of the designations of origin: don’t be fooled by the (Galician) mussels
The use of Designations of Origin (DO) is of utmost importance to guarantee consumers that the products they are acquiring comply with specific quality standards and that come from a specific geographical origin. The doubt arises when producers intend to make similar or evocative, but not identical, use of the protected DO. How far can […]