Acuerdo de 26 de mayo de 2016, del Pleno del Consejo General del Poder Judicial, por el que se atribuye el conocimiento de diversas materias, con carácter exclusivo, a determinados Juzgados de lo Mercantil de Barcelona.
May the 25th 2018 will mark a defining point in the regulation of privacy throughout Europe. Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and Council, dated 27th of April 2016, has finally come into effect – after a long and complex legal process initiated in 2012-, regarding the protection of physical persons with respect to the processing of personal data and the free circulation of said data. The Directive 95/46/EC has consequently been abolished.
Said Regulation, (henceforth, the GRDP - General Registry of Data Protection ['RGPD – Registro General de Protección de Datos']) –is applied directly to Member States (without the need for national transposition), although a transitory period until May 25th 2018 has been established for its application, to all effects.
New EU Trade Mark reforms were enacted in December, which introduce some important very important practical changes on matters relating to Community Trade Marks “CTMs”. Some changes will be implemented from March 23rd 2016; others in September 2017. We have set out below the most important and relevant of them.
Change in name for the Office and CTMs
The OHIM will now be called the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO). Community Trade Marks will now be called European Union Trade Marks (EUTMs).
Filling
The facility of filing EU Trade Mark applications at national offices is discontinued. Applications must now be filed directly at the European Union Intellectual Property Office.
Claiming priority
Priority claims will now be have to be filed together with an application, not subsequently.
Change in fees and the fee structure
“Three classes for the price of one” is gone. Instead, each class will carry a separate fee. This applies to filing fees and also renewal fees, too.
Change in renewal fee due date
Renewal fees must now be paid by the renewal date, rather than at the end of that month.
Effective from 24th March 2016, new official publication fees for renewal of trademark registration in ONE class will be implemented. The Saudi Trademark Office has substantially raised the official publication fees from US$80 to US$800 for each class.
Asian businesses were the key contributors to a record number of patent applications filed under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) last year, according to data published by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) today.
The total number filed in 2015 was 218,000, a 1.7% increase from the previous year.
Companies based in China, South Korea and Japan recorded increases in the number of PCT filings last year. Chinese and South Korean filers accounted for a 16.8% and 11.5% growth of PCT applications last year.
China-based Huawei headed the list for a second year in a row with 3,898 filings, while fellow Chinese company ZTE recorded the third most-filed PCT applications with 2,155. US semiconductor company Qualcomm was the second biggest filer, recording 2,442 applications.
