On August 8, the US International Trade Commission (ITC) announced that it would institute an investigation into the mobiles, including the iPhone 7, and specific components for such devices, such as baseband processor modems. In July 2017, semiconductor company Qualcomm filed a complaint with the ITC, accusing Apple of infringing six of its patents in the iPhone model and requesting a ban on imports. The complaint related to six patents: US numbers 8,633,936; 8,698,558; 8,487,658; 8,838,949; 9,535,490; and 9,608,675, which “enable high performance in a smart phone while extending battery life”.  

 

Microsoft Mobile has transferred about 500 design patents of Nokia to HMD Global, which owns exclusive production license of Nokia branded mobile phones. Besides Nokia 3, 5 and 6, HMD Global will launch the super new phone - Nokia 8. Among the above transferred patents, Lumia Camera UI is the most famous and worthy to mention, and one of the most useful camera UI in the consumers’ eyes. The Lumia Camera UI also made Windows phone one of the classical works when it was installed in the phone. But the well-known PureView, ClearBlack and PureMotion trademarks are still owned by Microsoft. Therefore, these functions will be unavailable in the Nokia phones to be launched recently.  

 

Ford Motor Company (Ford) filed opposition to the trademark application of LYNK&CO by the holding company of GEELY in the US, claiming that the English pronunciation of LYNK&CO is similar with Ford’s Luxury brand - Lincoln. The spokesman of Lincoln said that Ford will take all measures in Law to protect its trademark from being infringed by LYNK&CO. The United State Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has approved a grace period for Ford to officially file opposition against LYNK&CO’s trademark. Ford has been allowed to submit the opposition application before November 15. However, the person in charge of GEELY believed that the trade application of LYNK&CO in the US had been not influenced by the opposition filed by Ford.

 

On July 22, the Madrid municipal government submitted a request to the Anti-monopoly Regulation Department of Spain to investigate whether the low-price service in the Spanish airport provided by Uber recently constituted unfair competition. Thanks to that the Spanish market and the National Commission on Markets and Competition (CNMC) called the government to lift the ban on Uber, Uber just restarted its business a year before this request. The airport service covers the door-to-door service between Barajas International Airport and the downtown area, with 15-29 euros for a single trip. Compared with Uber, the normal taxi will charge 30 euros for the same distance.  

 

The UK Parliament delayed the debate on the Unified Patent Court (UPC) Agreement, which blocked the advancement of UPC Agreement again. UPC Immunities and Privileges Protocol is the last legislative measure of UPC approval by the UK. On July 17, the debate on the above protocol was not able to be held by the House of Commons. The spokesman of the Intellectual Property Office of the UK (UKIPO) said that the debate failed to be held as schedule due to that there are more urgent Parliament affairs to be solved in priority. After the summer recess which will end on September 5, the Scottish Parliament will establish a separate legislation. The House of Lords and the House of Commons will respectively debate on the UPC Immunities and Privileges Protocol, which will finally come into force after the approval of the Privy Council. Once the legislation is approved, the UK will officially ratify the UPC Agreement.  

 

The EPO has published its Social Report 2016, which provides a comprehensive overview of staff and working conditions at the Office. The 2016 report shows that the EPO remains an attractive employer: 226 new employees were recruited externally, 35% more than last year.  82% of these recruits were patent examiners, bringing the number of examiners to 4 300, with the staff total remaining at 6 800.  

 

The UK Intellectual Property Office (UKIPO) released “Facts and figures: patent, trade mark, design and hearing data: 2016” on August 15. According to the report, registered design applications jumped to 10,030 last year, compared with 6,472 in 2015, representing a 55% increase. Trademark filings rose significantly - from 58,627 in 2015 to 65,710 last year (12%). While the number of UK patent applications filed over the last five years remains more or less constant, the number of trademarks continues its steady long term growth.  

 

On August 2, Indonesia’s (2017) No. 20 government regulation on the import and export inspection of products infringing IP rights came into effect, which will implement the regulations in the (2016) No. 17 Customs Law. According to the regulation, the obliges of copyright and trademark should submit applications to the customs to register its copyright and trademark (for the customs filing). 30 days after the submission, the customs will announce whether the application has been approved. The valid term for the customs filing is 1 year, which can also be extended through application.  

 

The Intellectual Property Office (IPO) of India released the Review Guidelines of Computer Related Inventions, summarizing the regulations and explanations for the Computer Related Inventions (CRI) Patent Law in the length of 18 pages. It’s the third time that IPO of India published a new guidelines. The Guidelines lists the situation when the patent can not be granted. The Guidelines further indicates that when the patent reviewer evaluates the patentability of an invention, he/she should pay attention to the technology improvement of the CRI.  

 

NICHIA Accuses HTC U Ultra of Infringing Patent Right 

NICHIA recently filed a litigation to the District Court of Düsseldorf, Germany against HTC Corporation, its relevant enterprise HTC Europe Co., Ltd. and HTC Germany GmbH, and Digital River Ireland Ltd. concerning the latter infringing the former’s patent rights. NICHIA cl aimed that the white light LED installed in the HTC U Ultra produced by HTC has infringed the YAG patent ( European EP 0936682: DE 69702929) of NICHIA and claimed for compensation.  

 

According to the minister of industry and commerce of Sri Lanka, Rishad Bathiudeen, the country’s accession to the Madrid Protocol is to be completed by August next year. Bathiudeen appointed JM Swaminathan to head the Intellectual Property Advisory Commission of Sri Lanka with instructions to speed up the process of entering the protocol. The Madrid Protocol allows protection for trademarks in multiple countries through the filing of one application with a single office, in one language, with one set of fees. Currently there are 99 members signed up to the Madrid Protocol, after Thailand officially became a member earlier this month.