In this South China Morning Post article, Benjamin Bai and Jae Zhou challenge the view traditionally espoused in the West that China lacks the ability to innovate, a view that often emphasizes China’s reliance on low-skill manufacturing and duplication of imported creations. Bai and Zhou argue, however, that China “has been on a course to transform its economy, beginning with a model of incremental innovation but increasingly focusing on the development of independent and self-reliant intellectual property.”

Facebook Inc. is embroiled in a legal battle with Timelines Inc. over the trademark “Timeline.” Timelines claims that Facebook has infringed on its mark; a jury will decide on April 22. 

Apple Inc. is one of the valuable brands on the planet. Ownership of powerful trademarks such as iPhone, iPad, Mac, and others has made Apple one of the premier intellectual property powerhouses in the world. Recently, however, Apple has been running into a few problems concerning its intellectual property or, in a few cases, lack thereof. Last year, Apple finally settled a months-long battle with China-based Proview Technology over the rights to the trademark “iPad” in China. The prolonged court battle (in which Apple had claimed that it had secured the rights through a Proview Subsidiary for $55,000 in 2009) culminated in a $60 million settlement for Proview.

This week, Apple Inc.’s ever-growing IP armada was deprived of another piece of artillery. The United States Patent and Trademark office flagged Apple’s filing for the trademark “iPad mini.”  The examiners found that the term was “merely descriptive” and that insufficient proof that the item was going to be used for sale was submitted with the application.

The examiner, Ms. Lee-Ann Berns, did have one peculiar issue with Apple’s application. Apple submitted a screenshot as proof of use in sale; however, the examiner noted that: “The mark and picture of the goods on the specimen are not sufficiently proximate to the ‘buy now’ tab.” Luckily for Apple, the denial was just first office action and seems to be a relatively easy fix. Apple has 6 months in which to revise its application which should be more than enough time for Apple and its legal team to sort out the corrections.

However, the examiner’s notes do provide some interesting food for thought. She argued that “mini” is only a descriptive adjective referring to the product and therefore it cannot be regarded as “a coherent trademark.”  Berns raised an interesting argument that even though Apple already owns the rights to the iPad trademark, that the term iPad was merely descriptive: the “i” as an abbreviation of internet and “Pad” which is regularly associated with tablet computers. It should be noted that these descriptiveness objections were almost immediately withdrawn by the USPTO, but did Ms. Berns have a good point? Or does Apple have a strong case that they are responsible for the word “pad” synonymous with tablet computing?

At the end of February, Google and Spain’s data protection authority, the Spanish Data Protection Agency (AEPD), came head-to-head in the European Court of Justice. As European data protection efforts continue to zero in on search engines, this will be one of the most hotly anticipated decisions around the world (for those of us interested in privacy law, that is) and should be delivered by Europe’s highest court in June.

The case arose after Google challenged the Spanish government’s order to remove search results of a 21-year-old newspaper article that appears after performing a search on Dr. Hugo Guidotti Russo’s name. In 1991, Dr. Russo was featured in a newspaper article where a former patient alleged that the doctor had botched her plastic surgery. Although the doctor was later cleared of any wrongdoing, the article still shows up on the first page of Google’s search results of Dr. Russo’s name. This case is not the first of its kind in Spain. In fact, the AEPD has ordered Google to remove links to online news articles in 90 cases where petitioners complained about search results infringing on their privacy. Although Spain recognizes freedom of expression to protect newspapers, those protections do not extend to search engines. Meanwhile, Google claims that Spain is the only country that requires the company to remove links that do not contain illegal information.

Privacy infringement concerns have gained increasing attention within Europe. In fact, European lawmakers have proposed an update to its current data protection laws in an effort to provide a unified approach across the continent and respond to the growing concern among its citizens. One major change embraced by this update would be to establish a single, unified guideline for all European countries to implement.  A single set of data protection rules in place throughout the continent would have many benefits. International companies would need to understand and comply with only one set of rules instead of the fragmented standards currently in place within each nation.  Administrative burdens would also be greatly mitigated since organizations would only have to deal with one data protection authority in Europe.  Additionally, changing to a single rule has been estimated to save businesses as much as $3 billion a year.

While the move to a unified guideline regarding data privacy in Europe has many merits, the actual content of the draft regulations faces several challenges. One particularly controversial component of the proposed regulation includes the new “right to be forgotten.” Viviane Redding, European Commissioner for Justice, Fundamental Rights, and Citizenship, first introduced the right to be forgotten in a speech at the beginning of 2012. As exemplified by the Dr. Russo case, European citizens desire the power to delete certain information about them on demand. The right to be forgotten is based on the concept that people and organizations should be permitted to control their own information and determine for themselves when, how, and to what extent that information is communicated to others. More specifically, it will give individuals the right to have their data expressly deleted when it no longer needs to be retained for a legitimate purpose.

As currently drafted, the right to be forgotten gives people the ability to obtain erasure of personal data relating to them and the abstention from further dissemination of such data in four circumstances: (1) when the data are no longer necessary in relation to the purposes for which they were collected or otherwise processed; (2) when the person has previously given consent to the use of the information but later withdraws it; (3) when the person objects to the processing of personal data because the user (a.k.a. a company collecting data) does not have a legitimate interest or the person’s fundamental rights and freedoms override the user’s interests; and (4) when the processing of the data does not comply with the Regulation “for other reasons.”