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A perfect harmony in M&A, innovation and growth. Insights from Schoenherr | Paweł Halwa, Office Managing Partner at Schoenherr Poland

Marketing a product that incorporates a patented invention across multiple jurisdictions gives rise to a variety of practical obstacles and considerations. 

Both Austrian national designs as well as Registered Community Designs with EU-wide protection can initially be filed without disclosure (i.e. secret applications). This means that their publication will be deferred. Secret design applications generally make sense if the applicant is interested in keeping a design undisclosed for as long as possible. The precise national and EU-wide regulations are not completely uniform.

What do the terms "novelty" and "individual character" mean and why are they so important?

As mentioned in our blog post of 23 April 2024 (link), several criteria must be met to ensure the legal validity of a design registration.

Designating designs

As we already noted in our blog article of 19 March 2024 (link), intellectual property covers more than "just" trademarks. A design is particularly recommendable if the external appearance of a product or part of it is to be protected.

When developing or refining a product, including its branding, a lot of time and money are invested in creating something unique that customers will need and love. To protect this financial and creative investment, legislators have decided to grant certain monopoly rights or intellectual property (IP) rights. So, how do you determine the appropriate type of protection for your product? In our blog (link) we have mainly discussed trademark protection. But trademark law is broader than you might expect. Besides the "name" of a product, other features such as the shape, the colouring or a sound can be protected as long as they are recognised as an indication of origin and no absolute ground for refusal, like the technical functionality of the feature, applies. Still, trademark law "merely" protects indications of origin. Fortunately, there are also other IP rights that should be considered as part of a protection strategy.

If you want to protect your trademark, there are a few things to consider:

• How exactly will the trademark be used?
• For which goods and/or services?
• And – today's topic – where?

Registering and monitoring your trademark are important tools to protect your trademark. It is also important to make sure to properly use the trademark and to indicate to the public that a word, logo or other sign functions as your trademark by marking it accordingly.

When developing a new brand, it is important to determine well before using the trademark and filing a trademark application whether there are any earlier conflicting trademark rights that could block use or registration. Trademark searches help to identify possibly conflicting earlier trademark rights and to better assess the risk associated with using and registering the brand.

What a ride it's been for legal tech and digitalisation in 2023! Generative AI took the world by storm. 

The priority principle in trademark law states that in the event of a conflict between two trademarks, the older right always prevails. As a rule, therefore, a trademark owner cannot defend themselves by claiming to be the owner of a later trademark.

According to global statistics, about half of all cases of corporate abuse are reported, and half of these reports come from employees within the company. The survey also reveals that corporate abuse can harm the company's reputation and cost it up to 5 % of its annual turnover, meaning that companies have a strong financial interest in promptly exposing potential abuses. In this article, Alexandra Bognár and Noémi Suller discuss various forms of misconduct within companies, highlighting the importance of a well-functioning whistleblowing system. This system allows people to report misconduct, even anonymously.

Have you recently acquired another company or some assets like a trademark or even an entire trademark portfolio? Has your company merged with another company? Or has it changed its name or address? Then don't forget to enter the change in the corresponding Trademark Register.

Unlike national applications, which are protected only in a single country, the EU trademark offers protection in all member states of the European Union. Even if an obstacle to protection exists in only one member state of the EU or if owners of prior rights in a single country feel disturbed by the application, protection for the entire EU trademark is at risk due to the unitary effect. Thus, applicants for trademarks in the European Union often face a problem when the Office refuses to grant protection to a trademark based on absolute or relative grounds or when third parties file an opposition or cancellation request against the trademark.

While most provisions of the EU Digital Services Act ("DSA") will not begin to apply until February 2024, the EU Commission has nevertheless designated 19 "very large online platforms" and "very large search engines" – so-called gatekeepers – for which the strictest rules under the DSA took effect on 25 August this year.

While the legalisation requirements in connection with the assignment of trademark registrations were abolished in Austria a few years ago, everybody dealing with registered IP rights around the world knows that there are notarisation and legalisation requirements for documents like powers of attorney, affidavits or deeds of assignment.

Are you the proud owner of a trademark registration? – Please keep in mind that registration alone might not always suffice to ensure protection. In most jurisdictions, after a certain period of time you must prove that you are using your trademark for the protected goods/services – either actively or at least in case of a third-party contention. Otherwise, you risk the partial or total deletion of your trademark registration from the trademark register.

The CJEU's annulment of the "Privacy Shield" created significant legal uncertainty around the use of US clouds and personal data transfers to the US. Fortunately, summer 2023 brings good news: this legal uncertainty has gone. On 10 July 2023, the European Commission has adopted an adequacy decision on the "EU US Data Privacy Framework" (DPF).

Trademark registrations protect trademarks for certain products. These are to be itemised in the "list of goods and services" or the "specification". As the specification defines the scope of protection for the trademark, it is – alongside the sign for which protection is sought – the most important part of the application.

In our last blog, Michelle Duchon and Christian Schumacher reported on mandatory information for a national Austrian trademark application.

But how quickly can you get a trademark registered? With the fast-track application, it is possible to register a trademark within 10 working days.

To file a national trademark application with the Austrian IP Office, mandatory information must be entered in an online form. While this sounds simple, several aspects should be considered to avoid problems.

The Italian Data Protection Authority "Garante per la Protezione dei Dati Personali" recently banned the use of ChatGPT in Italy due to allegations of unlawful collection of personal data and the lack of an age verification system for children

ChatGPT is a well-known artificial intelligence chatbot developed by OpenAI. It is a simulated chatbot that was primarily created to fulfil customer service tasks. However, people tend to use it to perform many other tasks, such as writing essays, programming or predicting business developments. ChatGPT uses not only data from sources such as websites, articles or textbooks to improve its interaction with its users and to fulfil the set tasks, but also collects and processes data from the users and from the information they provide.

You are well advised to, but in principle there is no legal requirement to register your trademark in the European Union. There are several good reasons to file a trademark application.

Generative AI has made quantum leaps in the last year. Aside from multiple text2 image models there are large language models producing largely accurate and convincing texts in reply to prompts provided by a user. In November last year OpenAI made available the functionality of their vast 175 billion parameter model GPT-3.5, which was fine-tuned to interpret prompts formulated as questions. ChatGPT is a turning point in the public perception of AI, as it provided compelling texts with comparatively high factual accuracy.

After the adoption of the General Data Protection Regulation of the European Union (EU) 2016/679 ("GDPR"), as an obligation based on the Stabilisation and Association Agreement between EU and North Macedonia, a new data protection regime was adopted. Since 2020, the matter of personal data protection in the Republic of North Macedonia is regulated by the new Act on Personal Data Protection (Official Gazette of the Republic of North Macedonia, nos. 42/20, 294/21) ("LPDP"), effective as of 24 February 2020.

To attract investors in the area of innovation technologies, Serbia has adopted a set of subsidies relating to employees' salaries and corporate income taxes. In recent years, the country has set its sights on being one of the largest European hubs for EU and overseas IT companies using talented IT workforce only as an outsourcing service supplier while retaining actual project development in the countries of capital origin. This is seen as an opportunity to motivate foreign IT companies doing business in Serbia not only to shift their operations to Serbia on a larger scale, but to tie IP rights on their tech products to their affiliated Serbian companies.

The Omnibus Directive (Directive (EU) 2019/2161), also referred to as the "Enforcement and Modernisation Directive", is aimed at strengthening consumer protection and enhancing enforcement measures as the world gears up for the digital age. Recognising the increased use of online platforms and marketplaces, it encourages Member States to adopt specific measures to maintain a high level of consumer protection, including in these channels.

The recent years' sprint towards digitalisation was one of the decisive factors in accelerating the transformation of telecommunications infrastructure. The global markets expect an increase in investments in telecom infrastructure and Romania is no exception.

Despite a turbulent year for Central and Eastern Europe and the region's proximity to the Ukraine warzone, last year CEE was one of the most efficient creators of value in Europe...

Trademark professionals have noted growing interest in protecting trademarks for "virtual goods". This leaves trademark specialists as well as IP offices grappling with how to correctly classify these goods.

In a preliminary ruling following a request by the German Federal Court of Justice (case C-371/20), the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) interpreted Point 11 of Annex I to the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive (Directive 2005/29/EC; UCP-Directive).

You want to apply for a trademark that is visually or phonetically similar to another trademark, perhaps it even is contained as a whole. Is this possible without infringing on someone else's trademark rights?

The transitional period for the withdrawal of the United Kingdom ("UK") from the EU ("BREXIT") ended on 31 December 2020. All European Union trademarks and Community designs registered at that time were automatically cloned as national IP rights in the UK.

If you were to ask how funds are transferred in blockchains, the reply would be through wallets. But how do these wallets work and what does the term technically mean? 

The Serbian Parliament enacted the new Digital Assets Act ("DAA"), which will come into force on 29 June 2021.

It was in the very first Technology newsletter in fall 2019 that I reported about referrals to the CJEU concerning disclosure obligations and liability of user uploaded content (UUC) platform providers in relation to illegal (copyright infringing) uploads.

Companies spend a lot of time and money creating, innovating and protecting their intellectual property. When the protection fails due to unavailable or insufficient evidence, the frustration is understandably high. 

In an attempt to help start-ups during the current corona situation obtaining the much needed financial liquidity support from their shareholders or other investors, we put together a short and simple forward equity agreement, the "Simple Equity Investment Contract (SEIC)". 

Digitalisation is on everyone's lips. Parts of the judiciary – at least in some European countries – are hesitant. Austria introduced an electronic legal communication system for most Austrian courts decades ago. 

The new government promises great things for start-ups and for blockchain users. We have looked into the government's agenda  - here is a brief overview:

Financial technologies, or FinTechs, are rapidly changing the finance/banking sectors, and sometimes even shift whole markets online, and make it possible to deal, invest or lend money without ever needing to deal with a traditional bank.

Der Gesellschaftsvertrag ist das A und O bei der Gründung eines Startups. Bei welchen Bestimmungen muss man aufpassen?