Stay up to date with the latest intellectual property developments from New Zealand and around the world.
CJEU Gives Guidance on Intention to Use and Bad Faith
In C-371/18 Sky PLC v SkyKick UK Ltd the Court of Justice for the European Union (CJEU) gave important guidance on both whether a trade mark can be invalidated for having an inappropriately wide specification and on whether a specification that contains goods or services for which there is no intention to use is invalid for bad faith...
Priority Entitlement Challenge from Suspicious Ownership Changes Fails
In 2019 NZIPOTM 30 Apple Inc v Swatch AG the Assistant Commissioner held that Apple’s assignment of IWATCH trade mark applications from an affiliated entity was not in contravention of the Trade Marks Act (and Paris Convention) provisions that only allow priority to be claimed from the first priority filing...
Discussion Paper on Possible EU-NZ FTA Changes to Geographical Indications Legislation
Within the context of on-going Free Trade Agreement discussions between New Zealand and the European Union the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) has released a discussion paper on potential changes to New Zealand’s geographical indication (GI) legislation, with feedback sought by Friday, 27 March 2020...
IPONZ has announced some applicant friendly changes to its practice in respect of Global Patent Prosecution Highway (GPPH) program, which allows accelerated examination of qualifying applications that have already had at least one claim found to be allowable by an IPO of a GPPH member...