[The IPKat] Never Too Late: If you missed the IPKat last week!

[Wissam Bentazar]

Never Too Late: If you missed the IPKat last week!

 Wissam Bentazar Thursday, January 29, 2026 -#NeverTooLate, #patents, copyright, trademarks, Wissam Bentazar

Graphic by Riana Harvey

Not to make January feel any longer by dragging you back to last week, but… here we are. As the month that refuses to end finally inches toward the exit, the Kats still managed to pack in a full dose of posts. If the last stretch slipped by in a blur of cold mornings and reheated coffee, here is your Never Too Late rewind.

Copyright 

Söğüt Atilla-Aydın reported on a significant US appellate ruling confirming that YouTube remains within the DMCA safe-harbour even where further infringing content stays online after a takedown request, provided the platform lacks specific knowledge of those additional videos. The Eleventh Circuit reaffirmed the logic of the notice-and-takedown system and rejected the idea that identifying one infringing file triggers a duty to proactively search for all related copies. 

Patents 

Claire Gregg took readers to New Zealand and Australia to unpack the problem of inherent anticipation in second medical use claims. Through Chemocentryx, Otsuka and Neurim, she showed how novelty can collapse where claims amount to “mere discovery” or “parameteritis”, but may survive where a newly defined patient group or therapeutic effect genuinely produces a technical contribution rather than just a new explanation of the old. 

Trademarks 

Marcel Pemsel analysed the General Court’s refusal to register a motion mark showing the opening and closing of a vehicle window. The judgment confirmed that dynamic presentation cannot be used to circumvent the prohibition on monopolising technical solutions: if the movement merely illustrates how a product works, distinctiveness and registrability remain out of reach.

Books

In a guest book review, Zoya Yasmine analysedMetka Potočnik’s 'A Feminist Reconstruction of Intellectual Property Laws in Music'. The book explores how copyright, performers’ rights and trade mark law are structurally gendered, and how the FIPS framework seeks not only to critique but to re-imagine IP in music as a relationship-based, process-driven and socially situated system.  

Events 

Rose Hughes’ Sunday Surprises kept the January blues at bay with updates from the patent world and beyond, from the EPO’s latest quality statistics and its new PCT pilot with IP Australia, to forthcoming training, lectures and conferences on creativity, technology and plant variety protection. 

Looking ahead, Eleonora Rosati announced that Retromark returns on 26 March 2026, promising another afternoon of trade mark discussions, a keynote from Gordon Humphreys of the EUIPO Boards of Appeal, and panels tackling post-SkyKickbad faith and the ever-elusive “average consumer”.