At the end of the transition period (1 January 2021), registered EU Trademarks will no longer be valid in the UK. On 1 January 2021, UKIPO (Intellectual Property Office of the United Kingdom) will create a comparable UK trademark for every registered EU trade mark (EUTM). EU TM owners need to consider now how these new 'cloned' UK TMs and applications are going to affect their TM strategy.

The Unitary Patent will bring a significant change in the European patent system as we know it today. Besides its indisputable advantages, it has its risks and possible disadvantages as well. In our post we have gathered the most frequent questions and answered them.

Finally the new text of the trademark regulation has been officially published in order to harmonise the national trademark laws and practices with the EU trademark. Let us see what the biggest changes are which will presumably have the most effect on trademark practice.

Every year the European Patent Office (EPO) as a fundamental institution ofintellectual property rights in Europe organizes a conference where the recent highlighted decisions are revealed and current trends are analyzed in depths. In today’s IPintz article as a participant I seek to give a brief summary of this event.

The importance of protecting ideas, brands and any kinds of intellectual property is clear for a lot of actors of the market. However, multinational companies such as Nestlé are not afraid of investing money even in decade long courtroom battles to ensure their success.

Turkey was in the news recently as a result of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan losing majority in general elections. Erdoğan and his party, the AKP (Justice and Development Party) – worshipped idol by Hungarian PM – is often accused of seeking to build a dictatorship drifting away from the path set forth by Kemal Atatürk, founder of modern Turkey. The voters had the chance to express their opinion whether to move forward on Erdogan’s way towards a presidential system, and they clearly stated no.

Following up on our previous article, we review what obstacles the Unitary Patent had to face and may have to face in the future. Furthermore, we take a look at what the Unitary Patent system will probably mean for a small European country based on a formerly classified study from PricewaterhouseCoopers that provides an in-depth analysis of the topic, with disturbing implications.

As the Unitary Patent system is drawing nearer and nearer, it is important to review the current situation, and what the future holds.