The IPKat

A recent opposition decision by the New Zealand Patent Office in Resmed Pty Ltd v Fisher & Paykel Healthcare Limited [2026] NZIPOPAT 6 provides a useful reminder of how divisional patent practice in New Zealand differs from that in Australia, and the traps unsuspecting applicants can fall into in both jurisdictions.While not the substance of the Resmed decision, the Assistant Commissioner

Kat-approved networkingThe Katfriends at Kisaco Research wish to inform IPKat readers that the Life Science Legal Strategy Summit is relocating to Frankfurt for 2026, taking place at the Frankfurt Marriott Hotel on 13-14 October. The agenda is available here.Now in its 5th edition, the Life Science Legal Strategy Summit unites together in-house counsel with law firms, regulators, judges and more

Art by Riana HarveyMercury is finally out of the microwave, just as summer reaches its peak. The IPKat, meanwhile, has found the perfect balance between business and pleasure, keeping one paw firmly on the latest IP developments while still making the most of the season. Here is what you may have missed.Copyright Katfriend Seun Lari-Williams examined the recent parliamentary scrutiny of Nigeria's

IPKat is pleased to host the following guest contribution from Katfriend Earl Nied (Veracity-IP-Consulting LLC), who takes on a question FRAND discussions tend to skip past: not who holds the standard-essential patents for a standard, but when. Using the AVC/H.264 entries reported to the VIA Licensing Alliance, Earl shows that most listed entries have already expired, and that the landscape

August is supposed to be the quiet month. Somebody ought to tell the courts of Europe. In recent weeks, the same heart failure drug has had its SPC upheld in two jurisdictions on two quite different grounds of attack, the UPC has declined to wait for a French court, and a Dutch pharmacy has found where the compounding exemption stops.Entresto twice over: UK and Greece arrive at the same placeIn

Darren Meale of Simmons & Simmons presents the eighteenth volume of his rundown of notable trade mark cases over the past six months:Retromark Volume XVIII: the last six months in trade marksby Darren MealeWe’re back with another bumper volume of trade mark judgments. In an era where long-form writing is slowly (or maybe I should say swiftly) being replaced by generative AI, I can hold my

In a recent interlocutory decision in EOS Defence Systems Pty Limited v Pahlavani [2026] FCA 688, the Federal Court of Australia ordered the withdrawal of a PCT application and associated provisional application before publication. This unusual decision highlights the importance of confidentiality and IP obligations in employment contracts as a means of preventing employees from publishing

The IPKat has received and is pleased to host the following contribution by Katfriend Seun Lari-Williams (University of Antwerp) on the recent investigation launched by the Nigerian House of Representatives to assess the alleged irregularities in copyright administration. Here’s what Seun writes:Nigeria's copyright licensing system comes under parliamentary scrutiny by Seun Lari-WilliamsWho

In 2023, two members of the SHEIN group of companies issued proceedings against the newcomer of the e-commerce world, Temu. Temu was relatively unknown in the UK at the time, having only launched there in April 2023. Its aggressive pricing, combined with a mind-boggling array of products and gamified sales experience, launched it into the consumer consciousness quickly. SHEIN is the relative

This is a review of the book, Pharmaceutical, Biological and Chemical Patents: A Handbook (Hart Beck Nomos 2026), by Marco Stief, Maximilian Haedicke and Annelie Wünsche. It's not obvious until you move past the cover, but the book focuses on German patent law. It draws on the relevant principles laid down in the German Patent Act (Patentgesetz - PatG) and the European Patent Convention (EPC

The IPKat brings you the latest IP news, events, and opportunities!EventsChIPs: 2026 Europe Summit.The 6th Annual ChIPs European Summit will take place on 19 November 2026 in Lisbon. This year's theme is “At the Edge: Leadership for an Intelligent Age”. The event will bring together judges, industry leaders, and practitioners to address leading the transition from the Information Age to the

If you are a lawyer, chances are you have at some point submitted a form with publishable and confidential matters you have handled to a legal directory, invited colleagues and clients to recommend you, recommended colleagues yourself or proudly displayed a badge of the legal directory that ranked you on your firm's website or in your email signature. The recent decision Top-Mediziner of the

Over a year ago, this Kat reported on Anthropic’s motion for summary judgment that cited fair use (IPKat here). In August 2024, Andrea Bartz, Charles Graeber and Kirk Wallace Johnson alleged that Anthropic’s unauthorised use of ‘pirated’ copies and purchased print books (later digitised) infringed copyright in their works. While (the now retired) Judge Alsup found that the latter benefited from

Invalidity applicants relying on patent specifications to attack the validity of an EU design should take note: the General Court has confirmed that only the specific illustrations actually relied upon as “earlier designs” are relevant to the assessment of individual character and not the wider patent disclosure surrounding them. This is the key lesson from the General Court’s judgment in

Beware the MCP trojan horseAs patent attorneys, we should all know by now not to put client confidential information to a non-enterprise version of an LLM. However, as the capabilities of AI tools become more complex, so too does the necessity of understanding what exactly they are doing and where our data goes, beyond the simple prompt. One such requirement is understanding the process by which

The loss of market share we are already seeing for on-market cell therapy products is a result of in-class competitors for the same target and indication from rival innovator companies, not copycat products with identical CAR sequences. In such a market, sequence-limited composition-of-matter protection of the CAR sequence may have limited value. We are now seeing this play out at the UPC, with

Missed last week on the IPKat? Catch up with our round-up of last week’s posts:Copyright Georgia Jenkins delved into the subject of copyright exhaustion in light of the recent judgment of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales in JJH Enterprises Limited v Microsoft Corporation. Marcel Pemsel reported on the German Supreme Court ruling in USM Haller II (I ZR 96/22) and its implications for the