The England and Wales Court of Appeal, in a decision written by Justice Robin Jacob, has upheld the lower court’s ruling that Samsung did not infringe Apple’s registered design with its Galaxy tablet and the requirement that Apple publish the fact of the non-infringement.
The Canadian Patent Office has posted proposed revisions to the Manual of Patent Office Practice (MOPOP) chapter relating to Final Action Practice. The proposed changes relate to the proposed amendments to the Patent Rules on Final Actions published last week.
The United States Supreme Court has granted certiorari in Bowman v. Monsanto Co on the application of patent exhaustion to second generation self-replicating genetically modified seeds.
The Copyright Board released its tariff decision in the SOCAN Tariff 22.A and CSI Tariff proceedings for online music. The Board certified tariffs for CSI for music downloads, to both SOCAN and CSI for online music streaming and to SOCAN for video-clips. The Board applied the recent Supreme Court of Canada decisions on previews and downloads.
The Honourable Michael Manson, a lawyer from Smart & Biggar has been appointed to the Federal Court. Appointments were also made to the Supreme Court of Canada, the Federal Court of Appeal, the Tax Court, and courts in British Columbia, Manitoba, Newfoundland & Labrador, Ontario, Quebec, and Saskatchewan.
Proposed changes to the Patent Rules were published in the Canada Gazette relating to the handling of patent applications after a “Final Action”. The proposed changes include permitting a review of the entire application and allowing the application without returning it to the examiner from the Patent Appeal Board.
Proposed regulations were published in the Canada Gazette relating to the patent agent and trade-mark agent examinations. The proposed changes include requiring lawyers to write the trademark agent exam to become agents and introducing more flexibility for running the patent agent exam.
CIPO announced today that it is extending the Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) arrangements with Finland, Germany and Spain until at least September 2014.
CIPO issued a notice today that it is still reviewing comments received on its proposed guidance to patent Examiners relating to patentable subject matter. CIPO indicated that it will provide an update in October.
New rules for U.S. patent prosecution came into force yesterday as part of implementation of the America Invents Act. The new rules relate to inventor oath and declarations, supplemental examination, inter parte review, post grant review and covered business method patents.