CLASS 46
Now in its twelfth year, Class 46 is dedicated to European trade mark law and practice. This weblog is written by a team of enthusiasts who want to spread the word and share their thoughts with others.
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THURSDAY, 15 SEPTEMBER 2011
Reality Check: MARQUES conference Part 6
The Thursday session of MARQUES's Baveno conference opened with an update from WIPO on activities affecting trade mark and design owners, with a focus on the international registration systems (Madrid, Hague and Lisbon) and developments in the WIPO Standing Committee on Trademarks. Markus Frick (Walder Wyss Ltd, Switzerland) was in the chair.
First to speak was Marcus Höpperger (Acting Director Trademarks, Industrial Designs Law Division), who opened by emphasising the concerns which we all share with regard to economic growth and innovation. Marcus reminded the audience that innovation was not solely a matter of research and development, since it was also driven by the exploitation of brands; he summarised the work being done with regard to that notoriously unharmonised area, design protection and raised the question of protection of brand values that are incorporated into country names. Can trade mark law really guard against undesirable or uncontrolled uses of, for example, the name Jamaica?
Trade marks on the internet were next for discussion. Marcus reminded us of the olden days when people still used to discuss the perils of metatags -- a subject one never hears of now that we are all fixated on the social media. The translation issues and the current state of IPO's online services for users.
expansion of generic top-level domain names (gTLDs) was reviewed, in the context of WIPO's key role in the resolution of domain name disputes. Finally, Marcus took the conference on a rapid tour of Singapore -- the Treaty, that is -- and mentioned its facility for handling so-called non-traditional marks. He then handed straight over to his colleague Debbie Roenning (Director, Legal and Promotional Division, International Registries of Madrid and Lisbon, WIPO).
Debbie called for more countries to sign up for the Madrid Protocol, so that WIPO could colour in some more bits of its world map. She then addressed in some detail, to the evident pleasure of many members of the audience, some of the technical issues arising from use of the Madrid Protocol, including the ever-contentious topic of Central Attack, translation issues and the current state of IPO's online services for users. Debbie then moved on to the Hague system for international design filing -- the WIPO Hague map had even more bits that needed colouring in than did the Madrid map, so more accessions to the system are very welcome. Numerous countries are in the pipeline for signing up to the Geneva Act, so future prospects look good.
Posted by: Blog Administrator @ 08.17
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