This volume offers a detailed analysis of the issues related to the protection of non-traditional marks. In recent years, the domain of trademark law and the scope of trademark protection has grown exponentially. Today, a wide variety of non-traditional marks, including colour, sound, smell, and shape marks, can be registered in many jurisdictions. However, this expansion of trademark protection has led to heated discussions and controversies about the impact of the protection of non-traditional marks on freedom of competition and, more generally, on socially valuable use of these or similar signs in unrelated non-commercial contexts. These tensions have also led to increasing litigation in this area across several jurisdictions. This book provides an overview of the debate and state of the law surrounding non-traditional marks at the international, regional, and national level. In particular, this book addresses relevant international treaties administered by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects to Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) as well as several regional and national legislations and leading judicial decisions in order to examine current law and practice culminating in critical reflections and suggestions on the topic. This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations.

This volume offers a detailed analysis of the issues related to the protection of non-traditional marks. In recent years, the domain of trademark law and the scope of trademark protection has grown exponentially. Today, a wide variety of non-traditional marks, including colour, sound, smell, and shape marks, can be registered in many jurisdictions. However, this expansion of trademark protection has led to heated discussions and controversies about the impact of the protection of non-traditional marks on freedom of competition and, more generally, on socially valuable use of these or similar signs in unrelated non-commercial contexts. These tensions have also led to increasing litigation in this area across several jurisdictions. This text provides an overview of the debate and state of the law surrounding non-traditional marks at the international, regional, and national level.

Written by a team of international experts, marshalled by one of the world’s foremost trademark lawyers, Trademark Dilution and Free Riding is the leading comparative work on trademark dilution. This book is a must-have resource for trademark professionals worldwide, and will also stand as a valuable reference point for intellectual property scholars.

Completely revised and updated, this seventh edition of a well-received desk reference offers in one volume a comprehensive review of United States (US) copyright, patent, and trademark laws. Like its previous editions, the book’s thorough and sophisticated treatment of this complex material escapes the cumbersome overelaboration of a multivolume treatise on the one hand and a superficial “nutshell” on the other hand. Maintaining the systematic structure that makes it easy for users to zero in on any particular matter, the new edition incorporates the changes that have entered into force since the sixth edition and expertly examines their effects. The three major categories of copyright, patent, and trademark are covered in turn—along with a fourth part on chip protection—with detailed but concise examination and analysis of such issues and topics as the following and much more: subject matter of protection; conditions of protection; registration procedures; scope of exclusive rights; transfer of interests; fair use; rights in unregistered marks; protection of computer software, code, and databases; remedies and defenses; and procedural issues in infringement actions. The authors examine significant case law, updated for this edition, in the course of their analysis. With its detailed citations and readily accessible and complete subject coverage, this latest edition is sure to retain its usefulness as a quick reference or desk book for intellectual property practitioners, in-house counsel, patent agents, academics, and librarians, as well as for anyone interested in understanding US intellectual property law.

An easy-to-understand guide for designers on the legal topics that deeply affect their everyday professional activities, Become a Successful Designer provides designers with ways to protect and handle their intellectual property rights. Focus groups are all kinds of designers of the product, furniture, interior, fashion, textile, communications, graphics, and computational design areas. The authors Joachim Kobuss, Alexander Bretz and Arian Hassani explain the legal framework and the possibilities to act in that field from a completely new point of view. The law and its effects on the individual designer are described in the context of designers’ everyday practice. Here, the legal aspects of design do not appear in incomprehensible legalese but are rather shown as a strategic instrument for designers which can be fun to handle. All topics are discussed from an international and general viewpoint – due to the increasing globalization in the design fields.

Completely revised and updated, this sixth edition of a well-received desk reference offers in one volume a comprehensive review of United States (US) copyright, patent, and trademark laws. Like its previous editions, the book’s thorough and sophisticated treatment of this complex material escapes the cumbersome overelaboration of a multivolume treatise on the one hand and a superficial “nutshell” on the other. Maintaining the systematic structure that makes it easy for users to zero in on any particular matter, the new edition incorporates the changes that have entered into force since the fifth edition and expertly examines their effects. The three major categories of copyright, patent, and trademark are covered in turn—along with a fourth section on chip protection—with detailed but concise examination and analysis of such issues and topics as the following and much more: • subject matter of protection; • conditions of protection; • registration procedures; • scope of exclusive rights; • transfer of interests; • fair use; • rights in unregistered marks; • protection of computer software, code, and databases; • remedies and defenses; and • procedural issues in infringement actions. The authors examine significant case law, updated for this edition, in the course of their analysis. With its detailed citations and readily accessible and complete subject coverage, this latest edition is sure to retain its usefulness as a quick reference or desk book for intellectual property practitioners, in-house counsel, patent agents, academics, and librarians, as well as for anyone interested in understanding US intellectual property law.

Virtual and augmented reality raise significant questions for law and policy. When should virtual world activities or augmented reality images count as protected First Amendment ‘speech’, and when are they instead a nuisance or trespass? When does copying them infringe intellectual property laws? When should a person (or computer) face legal consequences for allegedly harmful virtual acts? The Research Handbook on the Law of Virtual and Augmented Reality addresses these questions and others, drawing upon free speech doctrine, criminal law, issues of data protection and privacy, legal rights for increasingly intelligent avatars, and issues of jurisdiction within virtual and augmented reality worlds.

Presents a unique interoperability model for regional and international integration of intellectual property laws based on cooperation the ASEAN Way.