That s the way the cookie crumbles , a panel of judges from the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit again concluded in rejecting trade dress protection for the well-known Pocky cookie design. However, in a revised decision following a rehearing request, the panel clarified its initial analysis on trade dress functionality, providing a fuller explanation of its reasoning which may soothe trade dress advocates.
Facts
More than 50 years ago, Japanese confectionery company Ezaki Glico Kabushiki Kaisha released Pocky – thin, elongated biscuits partially covered with chocolate (Figure 1).
Figure 1
Pocky eventually entered the US market. About five years later, Lotte Confectionery began selling Pocky lookalike biscuit sticks called Pepero (Figure 2):
As of November 2020, e-scooters are legal in New York City. The use of e-scooters and e-bicycles in the state of New York is subject to various safety measures, including the requirement to wear a helmet, lower speed limits and provisions addressing use while intoxicated. Still, the budget provision is considered a major win for those who advocate for New York's working poor.
Facts
The applicant sought legal aid for an intended action against the defendant, a travel company. Among other things, she sought compensation under the Montreal Convention (MC) for an injury she had allegedly suffered during an international flight from Munich to Denpasar, Indonesia via Singapore.
She claimed that a flight attendant had injured her knee during the flight with a service cart.
The Hanover Regional Court rejected the application for legal aid. It found that a claim for damages under Article 17 of the MC did not exist because this would require the damage to result from a typical aviation hazard.
With the development of technology, cameras and mobile phones now have various built-in shooting modes or parameters that enable photographers to shoot different scenes quickly. Traditionally, photographers would have had to adjust the parameters themselves. Notably, in two recent decisions the IP Court ruled that photographic works taken using built-in shooting modes or parameters can meet the Copyright Act s requirements for creativeness (originality).
In a judgment rendered on 22 October 2020 (Min-Zhu-Shang-Zi No 2), the IP Court stated that:
To evaluate whether a photographic work is of creativeness , one can no longer judge based on the adjustments of aperture, shutter, depth of field and amount of light and other photographic techniques performed in the manner that a traditional photographer would do. Instead, as long as the choice of shooting theme and shooting subject and the adjustment of shooting angle and composition in accordance with the original concept in the phot
contribute to the resolution of societal challenges; and
are properly registered in the patent system.
The National Institute for the Defence of Competition and Protection of Intellectual Property protects inventions that are duly patented. This guarantees the inventor s exclusivity rights, especially when the product enters the Peruvian market with a strictly commercial purpose.
However, universities, research centres and the scientific community have free access to patents because they are considered a valuable source of technical information.
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