On 15 April 2019, the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market, a.k.a. the EU Copyright Directive, was approved by the Council of the European Union.

As the European Commission emphasizes (please see https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/modernisation-eu-copyright...), the new Directive should support “creating a Digital Single Market” and “bringing down barriers to unlock online opportunities”. The aim is to provide EU copyright rules that fit to the digital age.

The main goals are:

•    better access to online content and across borders, 

•    improved copyright rules for education, research, cultural heritage and inclusion of disabled people and

•    a fairer online environment for creators, the press and a well-functioning marketplace for copyrights. Weiterlesen über It’s a done deal: Modernization of the EU copyright rules

Intellectual property authorities of China have recently gone through major changes. This blog post briefly introduces the merger of patent and trademark authorities into the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA).

                                              Weiterlesen über Chinese IP Authorities now under ‘CNIPA’

Traditional forms of trademarks will remain the most relevant, but companies should also start making more of the new possibilities to register and use more complex marks like hologram marks, motion marks or multimedia marks to strengthen their business. However, give a lot of thought into creating such marks to ensure they will be recognized as TRADEMARKS by the public.

EUTM No. 017451816                            EUTM No. 017941596                           EUTM No. 017965087

(Examples of multimedia marks registered with the EUIPO) Weiterlesen über What you see is what you get – Multimedia Marks

On 14 February 2019, the Higher Regional Court Frankfurt a.M. ruled that German courts have an international competence for adverts on the Internet in particular, if those adverts are provided on a “.de”-top-level-domain and if the web presence does not contain indications that the offer is not directed to German customers. Weiterlesen über At a glance: Higher Regional Court Frankfurt a.M. rules on international competence of German courts for adverts on the Internet (Decision 6 U 3/18 of 14 February 2019)