Authorities such as FIFA, the National
Football League and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) all have
strict rules for
athletes, fans and brands on what they can and cannot advertise, in order to combat ambush marketing. Tese restrictions, however, have attracted
criticism that they go too far and do not allow athletes to monetise their rights at a time when they are most valuable. During the 2012 London Olympic Games, athletes rallied around the social media hashtag ‘#wedemandchange2012’ in protest against the ban on advertising with unofficial partners during the event. Te protest looks as though it is going to
succeed. In July 2015, the executive board of the IOC is expected to relax the restrictions on advertising by allowing athletes to advertise an unofficial partner during the Games, as long as the campaign doesn’t associate the brand with the event itself. Former Olympic athlete Jade Johnson will
welcome the change. She previously told our sister publication Trademarks & Brands Online that: “It is good there is a bit of leeway, because too oſten athletes get lost in the soup of all this power and money.”
Intellectual Property Organization, had said two years before the decision: “Te sale and broad expansion of new TLDs in the open market, if not properly managed, will provide abundant opportunities for cybersquatters
to seize old
ground in new domains.” Although hundreds of new registries
have launched, it’s still too early to draw any conclusions about the effect on infringement. What is striking, however, is that around 600 companies (roughly a third of total applicants) applied for a ‘dot brand’ domain, taking more control over their internet presence and helping to change the face of the domain name system.
Should public health concerns trump IP rights? Tat was one question on people’s
lips when
Australia became the first country to introduce plain packaging legislation for cigarettes. From December 1, 2012, all cigarettes sold in the country had to be produced in a dark brown packet, with only a small space allowed for the brand name. Since the Tobacco Plain Packaging Bill was passed, the tobacco industry and anti- smoking groups have disputed how effective the law has been. Figures from Australia’s Bureau of Statistics
show that smoking has gradually decreased since the law was introduced. Te bureau said expenditure on tobacco products fell by more than AUD$100 million ($77 million) between December 2012 and March 2014. Plain packaging legislation has now been
Aſter six years of discussion, on June 20, 2011 the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) finally approved a shakeup of the domain name system. Te board’s decision, only two days into ICANN’s Singapore meeting, paved the way for a vast expansion of the number of generic top-level domains (gTLDs). Tere were 22 generic suffixes at the time; a year later ICANN received nearly 2,000 applications (although around 750 were duplicates). Until that day, and perhaps even now, many
brand owners had probably never heard of ICANN, but the non-profit’s decision has widespread implications for protecting trademarks online. As Francis Gurry, director general of the World
approved in Ireland and England, but both are subject to potential legal challenges from tobacco companies. Dan Smith, head of advertising and marketing
law at law firm Wragge Lawrence Graham & Co, told WIPR in October 2013 that there had been a “huge amount of concern” that plain packaging could be the “thin end of the wedge” and people were worried that products such as alcohol, and high fat, salty and sugary foods would be the obvious next stop for plain packaging.
On June 13, 2013, the US Supreme Court ruled that human genes are not patent-eligible simply because they have been isolated from the DNA sequence, striking down patents owned by genetic diagnostic company Myriad Genetics.
16
Myriad owned patents that
gave
it
the
exclusive right to isolate the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes, mutations of which dramatically increase an individual’s chance of developing breast or ovarian cancer. Te Association for Molecular Pathology had sued Myriad in 2009, arguing that those patents were invalid under section 101 on patentability. Te verdict temporarily muddied the waters with respect to determining patent
eligibility
of inventions that involve natural phenomena, and may have contributed to a surge in patent rejections by the US Patent and Trademark Office under section 101. Some worried that the decision, along with
Prometheus (also from the Supreme Court) in 2012, would have a negative impact on innovation in genetic diagnostics, which are predicted to play a big role in the development of personalised medicine. Myriad has since
been engaged in patent litigation with genetic diagnostic
companies, including Ambry Genetics and
Gene by Gene, which started offering their own BRCA tests immediately aſter the ruling. Te last of these disputes was settled earlier this year.
According to a report from professional services firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, China is expected to be the biggest economy in the world in 2030, overtaking the US, which currently sits in first position. Much has been made of the rapid urbanisation of
China’s cities and the development of the economy, and for brand and patent owners the story is no different. In 2014, China received record filings for patents and trademarks, and is currently the number one destination for global IP applicants. Despite this, there have been problems. For
example, right owners and IP professionals have complained about trademark squatting and the ‘great wall of patents’.
IMAGES: RON ELLIS, ZERBOR,
DEYMOS.HR, MANFEIYANG ,MAHATHIR MOHD YASIN /
SHUTTERSTOCK.COM
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