Latest blog articles

The recent cancellation decision of the word mark “BigMac” by the EUIPO Cancellation Division has raised several questions:  is use of a trade mark on a website sufficient to fulfil the requirement of making genuine use of the mark? Or is evidence of sales required?

With the development of international trade, local products have started to spread all around the world and become popular worldwide. Geographical indications (GIs) are meant to protect the use of the name that indicates certain characteristics and the origin of products typical for a particular...

Artificial Intelligence has become a key player in today's society, especially with regards to technological and medical advances. However the question is, has the current patent system been able to provide suitable protection for inventions relying on Artificial Intelligence without human input?

A comparative analysis between the major patent systems shows that the number of claims in a patent is influenced by the fee structure: additional fees per claim lower the number of claims considerably as compared to a flat fee.

Unlike other sectors, improvements in Genetic technology raise issues of morality. The new human gene editing technology CRISPR/CAS9 has raised many such concerns. Can the current patent system deal with these concerns or should morality be dealt with by the inventors themselves?

According to IGIR fellow Michelle A. C. Kristy, WTO law should be interpreted in a way that takes the evolution of sustainable development into account. Her PhD research suggests six components of sustainable development that enable WTO Members to better identify relevant WTO provisions and to...

On 17 December the Law Faculty of Maastricht University hosted an international colloquium entitled “Restoring Trust in Trade” in honour of Professor Peter Van den Bossche.

The need to guarantee the free flow of information in a Big Data economy forces us to re-think Intellectual Property Rights and find an appropriate balance between competition, innovation, privacy and incentives.

Most people’s gut-feeling would say yes… because it sounds unfair. The CJEU also opines yes, but bends EU trade mark protection rules considerably and thereby increases EU trade mark protection for trade mark proprietors regarding two aspects: 1) the scope of when a sign is used in the course of...