Articles

On behalf of the Netherlands Institute of Patent Attorneys (NIPA), a delegation of 12 independent patent attorneys visited China (Beijing and Shanghai) from 20 to 27 June this year. This was a return visit following a visit made by the Chinese counterpart, the ACPAA, to the Netherlands (and also our office) in April last year. Representing Nederlandsch Octrooibureau, Hans Hutter, Maarten Ketelaars and René van Duijvenbode were among the delegation.

The European Court of Justice and the Court of First Instance of the European Communities frequently give judgements about trademark matters. We have selected a few, which we will discuss below.

The first concerns the French fashion company Christian Dior. The main question for Dior in this matter was the following: How do we keep our products and trademark exclusive?

It could be said that a patent is the ultimate in knowledge transfer to our industry partners and is thus the tangible return on their investment in TIFN (Top Institute Food and Nutrition). Patents are also a tangible measure of our innovative success for our financer, the Ministry of Economic Affairs. TIFN has two internal patent coordinators who work with patent attorneys from the Nederlandsch Octrooibureau in Ede.