Courts in other jurisdictions
The Federal Court of Australia reversed a trademark opposition decision, finding that On Clouds’ and Cyclonic’s footwear marks are deceptively similar based on combined visual, aural, and conceptual similarities relating to the shared idea of a ‘cyclone.’
The Delhi High Court issued a permanent injunction against Google and awarded damages, holding that Google’s auction of the registered trademark ‘HINDWARE’ as a biddable keyword in its Ads program constitutes trademark infringement and that Google does not qualify for safe harbour protection as an intermediary.
The Delhi High Court Division Bench upheld a temporary injunction restraining Dabur from selling its ‘Cool King Thanda Tael’ cooling hair oil, finding its trade dress deceptively similar to Emami’s Navratna Oil — holding that a distinctive ensemble of red packaging, hibiscus imagery, and cooling motifs acquired secondary meaning over three decades.
The Delhi High Court Division Bench reversed a single judge’s infringement and damages decree against DVD importers, holding that Philips failed to prove its DVD decoding patent was essential to the standard and that the defendants’ imports from licensed manufacturers triggered patent exhaustion under Section 107A(b) of the Indian Patents Act.
The Delhi High Court granted an interim injunction restraining EaseMyBiz Technologies from launching its app or website, finding the name deceptively similar to MakeMyTrip’s established “MyBiz” corporate travel brand.
Japan’s IP High Court voided a trademark registration for “AI Announcer,” ruling the term is merely descriptive of AI-powered automated news-reading software and cannot be monopolized.
Taiwan’s Intellectual Property and Commercial Court convicted four engineers and fined Tokyo Electron NT$150 million in the first-ever corporate conviction under Taiwan’s National Security Act, for theft of TSMC’s 2nm semiconductor process technology classified as a national core critical technology.
Taiwan’s Intellectual Property and Commercial Court convicted four engineers and fined Tokyo Electron NT$150 million for stealing TSMC’s advanced 2-nanometer chip manufacturing secrets, in the first corporate conviction under Taiwan’s amended National Security Act.
The Unified Patent Court’s Court of Appeal reversed a first-instance denial and granted Abbott a preliminary injunction against Sinocare’s GlucoMen iCan continuous glucose monitor, finding the first instance had interpreted the patent claims too narrowly.
Japan’s IP High Court overturned the JPO’s rejection of a Riken Technos patent for transparent projection screen coatings, holding the patent office failed to explain why a skilled person would have selected the claimed resin from known alternatives.
Japan’s Intellectual Property High Court overturned the JPO’s invalidation of a key Broad Institute CRISPR patent, ruling that the institutions could validly claim priority from earlier U.S. filings despite a dispute over ownership of those priority rights.
Germany’s Federal Court of Justice held that the name of the James Bond character “Miss Moneypenny” does not enjoy independent work-title protection under § 5(1) and (3) German Trademark Act, because the fictional figure lacks the visual individuality and standalone fame required to be a work in its own right separate from the underlying James Bond film series.
Germany’s Federal Court of Justice dismissed Ferrari’s appeal challenging the “Testa Rossa” trademark, leaving in place the BPatG’s January 2025 ruling that bad-faith trademark applications under § 8(2) No. 10 MarkenG require objective evidence of damaging or obstructing intent — mere free-riding on a famous mark is not enough.
The Japan Intellectual Property High Court reversed the Tokyo District Court and held that a generic narlfrafen hydrochloride (nalfurafine) anti-itch product infringes Toray’s term-extended pharmaceutical use patent on Remitch, awarding the patentee approximately ¥21.7 billion (~US$140 million) in damages. The decision expansively defines the scope of extended Japanese pharmaceutical patents — covering generics with substantively identical active ingredient, dosage, usage, and indication, not merely formally identical products.
Korea’s Supreme Court affirmed dismissal of indirect patent-infringement claims against a domestic manufacturer that produced 13 individual conjugate substrates in Korea but exported them for final mixing into a 13-valent pneumococcal vaccine abroad, holding that under the territoriality principle of Korean Patent Act § 127(1), “production” must occur within Korean territory and a foreign-completed final assembly does not trigger Korean indirect-infringement liability.
France’s Cour de cassation held that when assessing trademark forfeiture for non-use under Article L.714-5 CPI, courts must analyze whether the proven use covers an autonomous sub-category of goods or services narrower than the registered category — looking to the purpose or destination of the products or services rather than being constrained by Nice classification headings.
The Supreme People’s Court IP Tribunal reversed a first-instance finding of patent infringement in a power-management chip dispute, holding that pulse-signal generation circuit features in the accused chip differed from the patented features in means, function, and effect — and therefore neither identically infringed nor were equivalent. The decision is the SPC’s most prominent 2025 elaboration of the doctrine of equivalents in logic-circuit patents.
The Paris Judicial Court issued France’s first major upcycling decision, holding that incorporating cut pieces of authentic Hermès silk scarves into Levi’s denim jackets — even when sold as commercial ‘upcycling’ — constitutes copyright infringement, trademark infringement, and unfair competition. The court rejected the argument that environmental sustainability operates as a defense to luxury IP rights.