Intellectual Property Law

Brexit has prompted a record number of trademark applications in the UK, according to new data. There were 195,000 trademarks registered in the UK in the past year, an increase of 54 per cent on the previous year's figure of 127,000.

Intellectual property lawyer Brian McElligott has joined AI solutions company Altada Technology Solutions as chief intellectual property counsel. Previously a partner at business law firm Mason Hayes & Curran, Mr McElligott will lead Altada's regulatory compliance and due diligence of Altada's I

William Fry partners Colette Brady and Laura Scott examine when the Unified Patent Court (UPC) could become a reality. The creation of a single European patent with unitary effect across participating EU member states (Unified Patent/UP) and a new court system to enforce and defend such patents (Uni

Global intellectual property company Murgitroyd has grown its Irish base with the acquisition of European patent and trade mark attorney firm Hanna Moore + Curley (HMC). Dublin-headquartered HMC, which specialises in obtaining intellectual property protection for a wide range of sectors including li

William Fry partner Colette Brady and trainee solicitor Darragh Larkin consider the latest EU case law on user-generated content. The Grand Chamber of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has issued its judgment on the liability of internet platforms in the joined cases of YouTube and C

Sumi Nadarajah of FRKelly introduces Ireland's first registered "motion mark". Companies and brand owners are increasingly looking for innovative and creative ways to promote and market their brands in the digital age. This has led to the creation of new forms of trade marks such as motion marks, ho

FRKelly partner Shane Smyth has been elected as president of the Association of Patent and Trade Mark Attorneys (APTMA) in Ireland for a three-year term. APTMA Ireland represents the interests of all trade mark, patent and design professionals in Ireland and strives to bring recognition to the work

Intellectual property law firm Secerna LLP has hired former Accenture in-house counsel Dermot Roche to lead a new European office in Dublin. UK-based Secerna, which marks its tenth year in business this month, is expanding into Dublin to support its continued growth across Europe, the USA and the Fa

In a dramatic U-turn, the US government has signalled its support for waiving intellectual property protections for Covid-19 vaccines and medical tools to help developing countries tackle the global pandemic. The waiver was first proposed by India and South Africa last October in a detailed submissi

Leo Moore, partner at William Fry, examines a recent High Court decision and the potential implications for IP rights in sport. A live blocking injunction involves Internet Service Providers (ISPs) identifying and blocking illegal streams for the period of a Premier League football match. The list o

The General Court of the European Union has sided with Louis Vuitton in a long-running dispute over its canvas chequerboard print, The Fashion Law reports. The mark had been registered in 2008 with the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) but in 2015 it was challenged by an individual

William Fry trainee solicitor Karolina Rozhnova considers a recent case in which Twitter was ordered by the High Court to disclose information about a parody account. The High Court has ordered Twitter to disclose information about the identity of creators and controllers of a parody account using t

The coronavirus pandemic makes Ireland's implementation of the new EU Copyright Directive "all the more important", a senior IP law expert has said. Dr Mark Hyland, IMRO adjunct professor of intellectual property law at the Law Society of Ireland, said creative industries "are being badly hit by the

Dr Aisling McMahon, assistant professor at Maynooth University Department of Law and an expert in medical and intellectual property law, makes the case for a (bio)ethics space within patent law. COVID-19 was declared a pandemic on 12th March 2020 and by 9th April had claimed 81,580 lives. COVID-19 h

The UK will not seek to become a member of the proposed Unified Patent Court (UPC) despite earlier suggestions that it would, government officials have confirmed. An international agreement to establish the court was signed by most EU member states in 2013, but it is not an EU institution and the pr