Like Cadbury before them, Glaxo’s hard-fought attempts to register a trade mark for a shade of purple have been rejected. In this case, Glaxo had sought to register the colour of its seretide inhalers and asthma treatments as a trade mark, by providing the description “Purple – Pantone: 2787C” and this sign: The General Court … Read more

The UPC Preparatory Committee met yesterday (10.9.20) to discuss UK withdrawal and German ratification. It agreed that, on a temporary basis (in order not to delay the start of the UPC system further), Munich and Paris would split the workload London would have taken as the life sciences seat of the central division of the UPC.  Milan looks to be a lead candidate for the location of this seat of the central division in the longer term. Read more

CJEU follows Cofemel in allowing copyright protection where designs are not exclusively dictated by technical function The CJEU has decided in the Brompton Bicycle case C-833/18 (11 June 2020) that to qualify for copyright, a design must be original – that is, the subject matter must reflect the personality of its author (the creator or designer), as an … Read more

Key recent developments in the United Kingdom and Europe relating to patents and the pharmaceutical sector In this update we welcome our new IP partner in Germany. We have a number of interesting updates from the UK Court of Appeal, including a decision on Arrow declarations, a competition decision, an appeal relating to the lapse of an … Read more

Two important pieces of medicines and medical devices regulation are currently pending in the UK and the European Union: in the UK, the Medicines and Medical Devices Bill (the UK Bill), and in the EU, the Medical Devices Regulation (the EU Regulation on Medical Devices). COVID-19 has also had an impact, with the EU Regulation … Read more

Herbert Smith Freehills has published a new global guide on supply chain difficulties arising from the COVID-19 pandemic and associated restrictions and solutions. Supply chain difficulties are at the heart of the pressures facing businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic. In our latest guide we look at supply chain pressure points and what is being and … Read more

The CJEU has concluded that factors in addition to the graphic representation of a sign could be relevant to the assessment of whether a sign consisted exclusively of the shape of goods which was necessary to get a technical result. Further, the fact that a sign was protected by other intellectual property rights, such as … Read more

IP Minister Amanda Solloway has written to the House of Lords in response to their letter formally requesting confirmation that the UK would not be participating in the UPC. This request by the House of Lords followed a response given by the Government in February to a parliamentary question (recorded on Hansard) which said this … Read more