Psychology of brands: The keynote presentation by Dr Christian Scheier (joint managing director, Decode) provided lots of original perspectives on how brains process information about brands, and led to an interesting panel discussion with Gregor Vos (Klos Morel Vos & Reeskamp) and Prof Dr Dr hc Joachim Bornkamm (German Federal Court of Justice).
Take your partners please: The Lichtenstein Garden Palace provided a memorable backdrop to Wednesday’s Cultural Reception. As well as enjoying the beautiful views both outside and inside, delegates could see Prince von und zu Liechtenstein’s private library and art collection and watch (and – for some – take part in) Viennese waltz demonstrations.
The mysterious case of the shrinking CTM: The final session of the week, on European case law, was particularly timely given the publication of the CJEU decision in the Kit Kat case earlier in the week. Simon Malynicz of Three New Square discussed three overall trends in case law: shape mark cases, who is the average consumer and the “shrinking CTM” while Janet Satterthwaite of Potomac Law Group offered a US perspective on the same issues. Swiss neutrality was provided by moderator Peter Wild of Wild Schnyder.
Team building: Tuesday afternoon was devoted to meetings of the 20 MARQUES Teams. Anja Franke of Grünecker Kinkeldey Stockmair & Schwanhäusser summarised recent Team activities in a presentation on Thursday morning (see the report on Class 46).
Corporate Breakfast: The now well-established Corporate Breakfast took place on Thursday morning for in-house counsel members, and was moderated this year by Alan Minto of JT International.
Dinner and dancing: The Gala Dinner was held in the Orangerie at the Schönbrunn Palace, a beautiful venue full of Viennese character. The evening was wrapped up by the ever-popular band Mad Hen performing a string of hits that tempted many delegates on to the dance floor.
All change in Europe: Dimitris Botis, Deputy Director of OHIM’s International Cooperation and Legal Affairs Department, provided a thorough and practical guide to the changes arising from the EU trade mark reforms, noting that they will probably begin to take effect in spring next year (read the blog post on Class 46). That means this year will be the last time MARQUES delegates discuss OHIM and the CTM; next year they will be talking about the EUIPO and EUTM.
Workshops: There were five workshops on Thursday afternoon, organised by various MARQUES Teams, spanning the following topics: non-use cancellation, look-alikes; famous/well-known trade marks; geographical indications; and M&A restructuring. The latter was the subject of a blog post on Class 46. Many of those who did not attend a workshop joined one of the excursions to see more of Vienna.
Prize giving: Konstantin Hobel was presented with the Lewis Gaze Memorial Scholarship first prize for his paper on “Protected geographical indications and indications of origin: similarities and differences to trade marks, scope of protection and conflicts in practice”. Second prize went to Vesna Nagy. The 2014 winner Fabio Pezzolato assisted with the presentations.
Networking: The Exhibit Area was a popular networking spot during the coffee and tea breaks. The exhibitors this year were: OHIM, WIPO, Wolters Kluwer Corsearch, IP Pro The Internet, TrademarkNow, WIPR, Thomson Reuters, WebTMS, World Trademark Review, The Trademark Lawyer, NCC Group, Darts-ip and Unycom. The Annual Conference sponsors were: eproint, Coty, Ratza & ratza, Red Bull, Com Laude, CMS Reich-Rohrwig Hainz, Geistwert, Zacco and Arochi & Lindner.
In addition to those mentioned above, there were many other informative educational sessions, covering topics including surveys, advertising on the internet, the new EC Customs Regulation and 3D trade marks, designs and 3D printing. Delegates can go to the Annual Conference 2015 website to:
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View and download a selection of photos
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See the list of speakers and download their presentations
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Search the delegate list
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View the video with a sneak peak of Villaitana, Alicante 2016
More resources from the Annual Conference, including video clips and an interview with MARQUES Chair Uwe Over, will be available in the next few weeks.
See also the separate letter from WIPO in this edition of HouseMARQUES, following up on the session on the Madrid and Hague systems.
Issue 057
With three packed days of presentations and workshops, some remarkable venues and lots of busy networking, it was a memorable 29th MARQUES Annual Conference. HouseMARQUES selects a few highlights.
Nearly 40 people attended the recent MARQUES event on protecting trade marks with arbitration and domain name UDRP in Singapore, with some coming from as far away as India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and California.
MARQUES is pleased to share with members a letter received from the WIPO team following this year’s Annual Conference.
Water toys, golden bears and Jack Daniel’s were just a few of the topics being discussed on the MARQUES blogs Class 46 and Class 99 over the past month.
OHIM is continuing to work along with IP offices across Europe to increase convergence of IP practices. The latest fruit of this labour is the most recently endorsed Common Practice document, CP3: ‘Distinctiveness – Figurative marks containing descriptive/non-distinctive words'.
In a follow up to last month’s article, Özlem Fütman of the MARQUES GI Team discusses Turkey’s GI roadmap for 2015 to 2018.
WIPO is hosting a seminar on the Hague System for the International Registration of Industrial Designs in Geneva on 19th November.