Pindrama!

The U.S.-based social networking site has lost a challenge it made to claim the Pinterest trademark in the region, with a European trademark court ruling in favor of the current owner, a London-based social news aggregation startup called Premium Interest and its founder Alex Hearn.

Part of reason why, it seems, has to do with timing: Pinterest was already active by the time Premium Interest filed for a trademark in January 2012, but it had yet to formally enter the European market, let alone file a trademark. In fact, Premium Interest filed its trademark in Europe some two months before Pinterest had even gotten its act together in the U.S. to file for a trademark there.

The OHIM also determined that documents that were submitted within deadline only proved that the media was buzzing about Pinterest — but not that the general public in the UK or elsewhere in Europe were — or simply didn’t provide enough detail to show they supported the relevant timeframes.

Pinterest could still get an opening in the case on an appeal — when it would presumably not miss the submission deadline and provide documents that more clearly proved that it was already a well-enough-known entity in the UK and elsewhere in Europe before January 2012 (when Premium Interest first filed its mark).

The trademark battle behind Homer Simpson’s beer.

Duff beer is present in almost every Simpson cartoon.  Homer is Duff’s beer best testimonial throughout many episodes of the cartoon and some episodes are fully dedicated to it and description of many characters turns around this trademark.

 

From fiction to reality, the step was short for those who have thought well to register "Duff" for various product classes (mostly for clothes and drinks).

At a EU level, we saw several breweries stand out with company names which at times recall Homer’s beer. In relatively recent times - January 2010 - German Duff Beer UG has opposed the registration of the same trademark " Duff " by Duff beverage GmbH , disputing the likelihood of confusion.

Faced with this scenario the two German companies probably forgot they had to deal with 20th Century Fox, the legitimate holder of the brand in question, at least at EU level since 1999. In light of this prior registration, Duff beer UG, was refused the application for registration of the mark (Case R 0456/2011- 4).

On his side Matt Groening, has in the past claimed to be contrary to the production of an alcoholic beverage named Duff, in order not to encourage young people to drink .

In Italy just a few days ago the Italian judicial authority was again faced with Duff beer however this occurred on a criminal basis and not from a statutory / administrative point of view.

Prosecutor  Raffaele Guariniello was informed by Police of Verona that products reproducing a brand very similar to " Duff " were introduced in the Italian territory. It was so ordered the seizure of thousands of cans and bottles of beer imported (from Germany! ) by an Italian company.

The  Italian company is now currently under investigation for the "sale of products with misleading signs". More precisely, for putting into circulation drinks with names , trademarks or other distinctive signs are able to mislead the buyer about the origin , source or quality of the product; offense under Article 517 of the criminal code.

The Italian Government creates the CNAC the New Anti-Counterfeiting National Council

The Italian Ministry of Economic Development  announced to strengthen the fight against counterfeiting , a subject that is more and more concerning the Italian government institutions.

With decree of 5 February, the Italian Government instituted the CNAC (National Council for Anti-Counterfeiting ) composed of representatives of 11 ministries, the police department, and the representatives of producers and consumers.

According to the Italian Government the CNAC can be an effective tool, composed in a single body of all the forces who daily fight the serious phenomenon of counterfeiting .

In detail, the powers of the CNAC are based on national Anti-counterfeiting plan  as defined during the Anti Counterfeiting General Meeting.

The strategic areas on which the CNAC will focus will be:

- the Protection of Made in Italy ;

- the Enforcement  of Anti-counterfeiting Laws.

These activities will be intensified in view of two important events such as Italian presidency of the EU and the Expo 201 , which will allow such appointments to give authority to the planning of the National Anti-Counterfeiting , already considered as the  best practice in Europe.

Getty Images, 35 million free photos soon online . “We Lost the Copyright War"

The largest photo agency in the world admits defeat against piracy but look ahead, releasing nearly half of its archive. The new mechanism will provide the possibility of incorporating a photo on the internet with an embedding tool.

"We have failed to stop piracy - admits Craig Peters, senior vice president of Getty Images - websites, blogs , social networks: anyone can become an editor with images taken on the Internet with a simple right click of mouse button. Many do it in good faith because they do not know the rules of copyright. Others do not care. Moreover finding images without the watermark is easy, just go to Google or Bing and make a screenshot . " The parallel is close to what happened to music before the arrival of the free streaming services5: to provide users an opportunity of using, more convenient, fast and above all legal beautiful images.

 

But further ahead, Getty says it will evaluate how to develop the embedding tool. Some of the options for what it could do include adding advertising overlays, paid features, sharing limits and extending it to video. All possibilities, or not — it all depends on how people take to the endeavor.

“Out of the gate we are launching with a link-back and attribution, and we will evaluate monetisation in the downstream,” Peters says, “including how and what ways and over time you might develop alternative revenue models around it. We don’t have a plan to definitively monetise.”

To be clear, Getty already brings in a healthy amount of revenues from blogs like TechCrunch and others who pay (not small) license fees to use its photography and videos. The picture I used here, for example, to illustrate how the embed tools look, has license fees that range from £25 to £579, depending on the size.