Intellectual Property News

The latest updates and breaking news on Intellectual Property from around the world.

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Truth Isn’t Very Social For Trump TM Application

Donald Trump’s ‘Truth Social’ social network does not appear to have been the success that the former President hoped it would be, after its launch following Mr Trump being banned from Twitter. It has now run into further trouble after an attempt to trade mark the name was rejected by the US Patent and Trade […]

Taylor Swift Fails To Shake Off Copyright Claim

Taylor Swift is one of the latest in a long line of famous musicians to face a claim of copyright infringement in respect of one of their most famous songs. In the case of Swift, she faced a claim that her song ‘Shake It Off’ copied a 2001 song ‘Playas Gon’ Play’ written by Sean […]

Chinese Basketball Association sues steamers for copyright infringement

The Chinese Basketball Association (CBA) was recently successful in a jurisdictional challenge to its copyright infringement claim relating to the unauthorised streaming of CBA basketball matches. The jurisdictional challenge was heard in the Beijing People’s High Court, which upheld a ruling in favour of CBA. The two Defendants (Shanghai Magic Electric Information Technology and Shanghai […]

Statement on the Passing of Her Majesty The Queen

We join the nation in mourning the passing of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. We send our deepest sympathies to the Royal Family at this difficult time and we join all those paying tributes to her and her lifetime of impeccable service to the UK and beyond. Her devotion to the UK was an inspiration. […]

To Protect or to Profit?

American pharmaceutical and biotechnology company Moderna, Inc, (“Moderna”) has issued proceedings against rival Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech (“the Partnership”) for patent infringement. Moderna and Pfizer were both front runners in the race to find a suitable vaccine which protected against COVID-19. Moderna issued the claim in a US district court in Massachusetts and […]

Piracy of the Caribbean

Disney have come to an agreement over a copyright dispute over use of the original script of Pirates of the Caribbean. Back in 2017, Arthur Lee Alfred II, E. Ezequiel Martinez Jr.(“the Writers”) and producer Tova Laiter issued proceedings against Disney on the grounds Disney committed “wilful infringement of Plaintiff’s original copyrighted expression of themes, […]

Chinese National Intellectual Property Administration to monitor platform take down services

The China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) has announced plans to supervise and oversee trade mark take down procedures on e-commerce platforms. CNIPA has established a working group for the project which will focus on platforms such as Aliyun (Alibaba’s trade mark registration service), Baidu Cloud, Huawei Cloud, and Tianyancha. In particular, CNIPA will look […]

Dua not Levitating Anymore

Representatives for singer Dua Lipa have made opening statements in a copyright infringement case to have the claim dismissed. Song writing duo L. Russell Brown and Sandy Linzer issued proceedings against the singer back in March for copyright infringement. The duo claim Dua Lipa “duplicated the signature opening melody” of their 1979 “Wiggle And A […]

No Rain on Prince's Parade

The estate of late singer – songwriter Prince has won a trade mark dispute over Bang Energy’s “Purple Rain” energy drink. A subsidiary of Bang Energy tried to register “Purple Rain” as a trade mark at the United States Patent and Trade Mark Office (“USPTO”) back in 2020 for use on energy drinks, dietary supplements […]

No Tick for Geiger

Footwear design John Geiger and multinational corporation Nike have come to an agreement over a trade mark dispute. Geiger claims the parties have amicably settled the dispute. Geiger has allegedly agreed to modify the design of his GF-01 shoes. Nike initially issued proceedings against Geiger for trade mark infringement, claiming the GF-01 used “Nike’s registered […]

Spotify’s little-known history in Torrents

Torrents are (and have been for over a decade now) the predominant mode of file sharing for pirates. Users host files for download by others (seeding) and other users download tiny fractions of the same file from as many seeds as can be reached (leaching). The torrent program used then collates those tiny fractions back […]

Van Morrison challenged by ex-professional wrestler

The cover image for Van Morrison’s newest album, ‘Roll With The Punches’, features an image of Billy Two Rivers (the Image), a Canadian born ex-professional wrestler. In addition to appearances in numerous television programmes and films, Billy Two Rivers was also a leader of the Mohawk nation on the Kahnawake reservation, has featured in songs […]