One to watch out for
This Thursday, Advocate General Sharpston will deliver her opinion in the latest round of the Boehringer Ingelheim repackaging case. Lots of questions have been referred (you can read them all here) from the England and Wales Court of Appeal concerning conditions for reboxing, overstickering and repackaging in repackaging cases.
The IPKat will bring you news when it happens.
Consultation on the change to the Nice Classification
The UK Patent Office is running a consultation on a change to the Nice Classification for trade marks agreed at the 20th Session of the Committee of Experts.
The change sees ‘legal services’ moved from Class 42 (essentially scientific and technological services) to Class 45 (personal and social services rendered to individuals etc). Since the Nice Classifications are part of the Trade Mark Rules in the UK, a statutory instrument will be necessary to alter them in the UK.
Comments are invited (by 30 June).
The IPKat notes that this shouldn’t make too much difference to assessing identity/similarity of services, since the Nice Classification isn’t decisive in this assessment. However, it will make a difference to the number of classes those who want to apply for registration for multiple types of services need to apply for.