News and information

Senior European patent attorneys will, with a certain nostalgia, remember the ‘good old days’ in which they could easily call an examiner of the European Patent Office (EPO) and informally discuss a pending application.

The recent CJEU judgment and subsequent national interpretation in Rovi Guides v Telenet will have a significant impact on the predictability of legal costs and should be taken into account when setting up an IP litigation strategy in Belgium.

NLO is growing and is therefore launching a new recruitment campaign in September 2017. We have a total of eight vacancies for trainee patent attorneys.

In 2015, the Chinese web shop Alibaba set up a supermarket chain in China using the name Hema. There are now thirteen Chinese ‘Hema’ supermarkets, the last three of which opened in July 2017. The question is whether the Dutch company Hema, having a chain of department stores with establishment throughout Europe, can oppose this.

Counterfeiting – or fraudulent imitation – creates many problems. But how extensive are these problems and where do they occur? A recent research report for the INTA and the BASCAP sheds light on the situation. The damage to industry is astronomical and increasing. However, that’s not the end of the story. The social impact of counterfeiting is equally damaging.

In 2015, the so-called Tomato-II and Broccoli-II cases (G 2/12 and G 2/13) reached decisions from the Enlarged Board of Appeal.

Managing IP has published the results of its annual IP Stars survey, covering the top-rated firms for patent and trademark work. Once again NLO and NLO Shieldmark have been rewarded a Tier 1 ranking in the field of patent prosecution and Trademark prosecution in The Netherlands.

The Dutch Chamber of Commerce presents the SMB Innovation Top 100 2017 on Tuesday June 27. We will find out who ranks as most innovative entrepreneur in the Netherlands for 2017.

The financial success of a life sciences company depends primarily on the scope, lifetime and strength of its patent portfolio. Successful life sciences companies by default have IP portfolios that are strong enough to withstand any challenge from competitors and have a lifespan that is long enough to capture the potential value of the products or technologies.

For quite some time now fake invoices have been sent out to cheat holders of intellectual property rights out of their money. Should you receive an invoice for maintaining your patent, trademark or design registration, please verify whether the invoice has indeed been sent out by an official authority.