IP in the news

It’s the end of September and no Oktoberfest – already for the second time in a row. Moreover, the Oktoberfest is no longer without trademark protection. The term “Oktoberfest” is protected as an Union  trademark for 22 product classes – including tourism advertising.

Through this competition, WIPO aims to celebrate and make widely known the creativity of Indigenous and local community youth, as well as raise their awareness on how copyright can be used to protect their creativity expressed in the photographs. The theme of the WIPO Photography Prize is Climate Change and Climate Action: Mother Earth through our Lenses. Participation is meant to encourage Indigenous and local community youth to express themselves on this issue of immense global significance.

The material is highly economical and has been prototyped to create toys, lamps and kitchenware

Barcelona based Naifactory Lab are using a bio-compostable material made from olive pit to prototype toys, lamps and kitchenware. The material, “Reolivar”, is highly economical and can also be easily moulded at low temperatures. 

About the competition

The AIPPI Essay Prize is intended to encourage the art of essay writing on Intellectual Property and related topics. It was first launched in 2020.

The competition is open to AIPPI members and students of IP and involves writing a 2,500 – 3,000 word essay or filming a video on a certain IP-related topic. The video option is a new inclusion for the 2021 competition. Written or recorded entries will have an equal chance to win.

Inventing is easy! It is important to notice what surrounds us, and to try to improve it.

The aim of the National Contest of Young Inventors is to encourage children to think about
things that do not exist yet, to notice and find solutions to problems that surround them,
introduce the young to the exciting world of inventions and innovation and to acknowledge
young people with outstanding ideas as well as their supervisors and schools. The contest is
open for all students from year 1 to 12 and they are judged in three age groups.

A soft robot that can change colour in real-time to match its background like a chameleon could pave the way to new forms of military camouflage.

The 'artificial chameleon skin' that covers the segmented back of the walking plastic-bodied robot was developed by a team led from the Seoul National University.

Built to resemble the animal, the little walking robot is 1 foot and 3 inches (38 cm) long, some six inches (15 cm) wide and weighs in at 2 lbs (0.9 kg).

Italian designers hope the lamp will inspire designers to repurpose food waste to create eco-friendly designs that are both beautiful and functional

The Milan-based startup Krill Design is using Sicilian orange peels to print lamps that can be composted at the end of their lifespan.

The Italian design studio was founded in 2018 and has been developing a number of circular design products and biomaterials since.

Following last year’s certification of Thessaloniki, on 23 July 2021 the Municipality of Mykonos became the second Greek Authenticity to join the growing European Network of Authenticities.

A series of IP-related awareness-raising activities will take place locally over the next two years in the newly certified Authenticity, following a Memorandum of Understanding signed between the Hellenic Industrial Property Organisation (OBI) and the Municipality of Mykonos, in cooperation with the Mykonos Town Business Owners Association.

The 1 million digitised files milestone was achieved on 7 July 2021 at the Finnish Patent and Registration Office (PRH). The total number of digitised pages stands now at approximately 18 million.

The ECP5 Capture and Store Historical Files is a European Cooperation Project that aims to digitise paper dossiers across EU intellectual property (IP) offices to enable easy and rapid access to documentation and data related to trade marks and designs.