1. The blue diamond shape of Pfizer’s Viagra cannot have design right acknowledged.

 

Civil Collegiate Division 12 part of the Seoul Central District Court (Associate Judge Hong I-pyo) ruled against the plaintiff with the Court’s judgment that the blue diamond shape is not a patentable design, in the lawsuit filed by Pfizer, an American pharmaceutical company, saying “the generic drug Palpaljeong of Hanmi Pharmaceutical Company infringed on the design right of Viagra.”

 

The Pfizer side contended that since the consumers recognize the pill with a blue diamond shape as Viagra the design should not be imitated, but the Court did not accept this, adding “Although Hanmi Pharmaceutical Company intended to imitate the shape of Viagra, it did not use the design itself as a trademark, so it did not infringe on the trademark right.”

 

 

2. ETRI ranks first in the world for two years consecutively in the U.S. overall patent assessment

 

The Korea ETRI (Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute) announced on the 3^rd that it held the world’s first rank in the overall patent assessment for the year 2012 based on the patents registered in the U.S.  The ETRI let this be known by citing the April issue of IP Today, which reported the results of analysis of the U.S. IPIQ which assesses the technology and patent competitiveness of companies, research institutes, universities and government agencies of the world and ranks them based on the patents registered in the U. S.

 

The institution that held the second rank following the ETRI was MIT of America, and the University of California (America) and Stanford University (America) held the third and fourth rank respectively.  The ITRI of Taiwan and Fraunhofer Institutes of Germany recorded the sixth and ninth rank respectively. 

 

 

3. U. S. press and media groups: “Make public the inside story of the Samsung vs. Apple suit”

 

The Coalition of Media Advocacy Groups and the press groups of America requested the California Northern District Court of America to make public the content of the appellate trial between Samsung Electronics and Apple, so the development of the situation is being watched with keen interest.  Relating to this request, the Court is scheduled to hear the positions of the press and media groups and said that the Coalition and the press groups could participate the content up to 15 minutes after the appellate trial started.  But the Samsung Electronics and Apple requested U. S. Federal Court Judge Lucy H. Koh not to make public the documents related to the dispute because they include important business information including business secrets.

 

Whether the inside story of the litigation of the century and business secrets of global enterprises would be made public is a matter of interest.

 

 

4. Supreme Court of India dismisses Novartis patent

 

Production of generic drugs can continue … developing countries feel ‘relieved’

 

In the patent lawsuit raised by Swiss Pharmaceutical Company Novartis relating to Gleevec, a medicine for leukemia, the Supreme Court of India ruled that the compound for which Novartis applied for patent protection “failed to satisfy novelty and originality” required by Indian law.  Thus, the seven year patent war between the Indian patent office and Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis ended with Novartis losing the suit.

 

As the Indian Supreme Court does not acknowledge the Novartis patent for Gleevec, it has become possible to continue production of generic Gleevec type drugs.

 

Developing countries of Africa and Asia are glad with the ruling of the Indian Supreme Court because they have been supplying 20% of the world market of generic drugs and 90% of medicines for AIDS at low prices.  Social groups as well as UN organizations are using generic drugs from India because of budgetary restrictions. 

 

 

5. Imitation brands are losing their footing

 

The footing of imitation brands is gradually disappearing.  This is because the number of cases, in which the application of a trademark copying a trademark well known to the public, which is acknowledged to be an imitation trademark, in the process of formal objection of the trademark such that the trademark registration is rejected, is significantly increasing. 

 

According to the KIPO on the 7^th, the number of cases in which trademark registration was rejected because of being acknowledged as an imitation trademark was no more than 59 in 2009 but reached 643 last year, so it has increased by about ten times in three years.

 

The number of trademark objections and decisions has also increased, so the number of trademark objections from 2009 to the first quarter of this year is 7983, of which the number of decisions on objections reached 3392 (44.2%).  Of the number of decisions on objections, the number of rejections for the reason being that the trademark imitated another person’s trademark reached 1293.

 

 

6. Supreme Court 2013.2.14 sentenced, 2011DO13441 judgment [violation of trademark law]

 

[Decisions]

 

[1] The case in which the shape or appearance that could become a design is deemed to have been used as a trademark

 

[2] In the matter under indictment for violation of trademark law, because defendant B, who is representative director of defendant A corporation, imported for the purpose of selling the commodity in which are used cross stripes similar to the registered trademark of C company of the U. K., i.e. the victim, the cross stripes of the commodity that defendant A company imported should be deemed to have been used as a trademark in order to indicate the origin of the commodity in view of all circumstances; nevertheless it was deemed otherwise, such that defendants were acknowledged to be not guilty in the original verdict.  This is a case in which there is illegality of misunderstanding of legal principles in the original verdict.