[The IPKat] Never Too Late: If you missed the IPKat last week!
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Never Too Late: If you missed the IPKat last week!
Never too late for a festive rewind. As 2025 edged toward its final stretch and the reading season quietly settled in, the IPKat had plenty to keep even the laziest holiday afternoons occupied. If the last week of the year slipped by between slow mornings and end-of-year chaos, here is a timely catch-up before 2025 signs off for good.
Jocelyn Bosse guided readers through the second edition of Trade Secrets and Intellectual Property by William van Caenegem and Luc Desaunettes-Barbero, a work that sets out to position trade secrecy at the intersection of IP, policy and theory. She shows how the new edition strengthens its comparative ambitions, particularly through its engagement with the EU Trade Secrets Directive, and why it serves as a timely anchor in a field that remains both fragmented and conceptually uneasy.
In a guest post, Mattia Dalla Costa explored the second edition of the Research Handbook on Intellectual Property Licensing, edited by Jacques de Werra and Irene Calboli, praising its ability to bridge theory and practice in a complex, global licensing landscape. Bringing together leading voices from academia and practice, the volume maps licensing at the crossroads of competition law, contract law and regulation, with a forward-looking focus on issues such as FRAND, data sharing and technology transfer.
Marcel also turned to Miss Moneypenny to explore the limits of title-of-work protection under German trade mark law. Commenting on a recent German Supreme Court decision, he showed why even iconic fictional characters may fail to qualify as independent works, and why fame, merchandising and audience recognition are not enough to secure protection without sufficient autonomy within the underlying work itself.
Eleonora Rosati unpacked the EUIPO Grand Board’s refusal to register ‘GEORGE ORWELL’ as a trade mark for, among other things, books. Focusing on descriptiveness and distinctiveness, she explained why the author’s name was found to point directly to the content and subject matter of the relevant goods and services, while also noting the Board’s careful handling of public policy and cultural-heritage concerns.
Georgia Jenkins took on the growing presence of AI performers in advertising, using the festive slowdown as a springboard to examine new New York laws on synthetic performers and post-mortem digital replicas. Moving between disclosure duties, consumer protection and publicity rights, she explored how recent legislative moves respond to the quiet insertion of AI “faces” into brand marketing, while questioning whether transparency rules can really keep pace with global, fast-moving uses of digital doubles.
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Book reviews
As the reading season took hold, the IPKat's shelves filled up with timely additions. Former GuestKat Anastasiia Kyrylenko turned to Jeffrey Belson’s third edition of Certification and Collective Marks, showing how the book keeps pace with post-2017 developments, from EU trade mark reform and Brexit to the expansion of geographical indications. She highlights its strong UK grounding while underlining its broader relevance for anyone navigating modern trade mark practice.Jocelyn Bosse guided readers through the second edition of Trade Secrets and Intellectual Property by William van Caenegem and Luc Desaunettes-Barbero, a work that sets out to position trade secrecy at the intersection of IP, policy and theory. She shows how the new edition strengthens its comparative ambitions, particularly through its engagement with the EU Trade Secrets Directive, and why it serves as a timely anchor in a field that remains both fragmented and conceptually uneasy.
In a guest post, Mattia Dalla Costa explored the second edition of the Research Handbook on Intellectual Property Licensing, edited by Jacques de Werra and Irene Calboli, praising its ability to bridge theory and practice in a complex, global licensing landscape. Bringing together leading voices from academia and practice, the volume maps licensing at the crossroads of competition law, contract law and regulation, with a forward-looking focus on issues such as FRAND, data sharing and technology transfer.
Trade marks
Marcel Pemsel examined when a designer’s name risks becoming a façade rather than a reliable indicator of origin in PMJC. While the CJEU confirmed that brand heritage still matters, it does not do so at any cost. Marcel highlighted how the use of a designer’s name and creative universe may mislead consumers about who is really behind the designs.Marcel also turned to Miss Moneypenny to explore the limits of title-of-work protection under German trade mark law. Commenting on a recent German Supreme Court decision, he showed why even iconic fictional characters may fail to qualify as independent works, and why fame, merchandising and audience recognition are not enough to secure protection without sufficient autonomy within the underlying work itself.
Eleonora Rosati unpacked the EUIPO Grand Board’s refusal to register ‘GEORGE ORWELL’ as a trade mark for, among other things, books. Focusing on descriptiveness and distinctiveness, she explained why the author’s name was found to point directly to the content and subject matter of the relevant goods and services, while also noting the Board’s careful handling of public policy and cultural-heritage concerns.
Copyright
Katfriend Robert Dickens revisited the perennial difficulty of applying copyright law to photographs, asking whether recent case law marks a pivotal moment for originality and infringement analysis. Reflecting on the CJEU’s judgment in Mio/konektra alongside UK authority, he argued that while photographs will continue to clear the originality threshold, it is the substantial part test that must now do the real work, particularly as generative AI makes partial reproduction increasingly central to copyright disputes.AI
A four-part guest series by Dinusha Mendis, Rossana Ducato and Tatsuhiro Ueno mapped the fast-moving deepfake landscape across law, technology and society, drawing on comparative perspectives from the UK, EU, and key Asian jurisdictions. The series shows how deepfakes sit at the crossroads of creativity and harm, exposing gaps in existing legal frameworks while testing tools ranging from IP and data protection to personality rights and platform governance. Bringing together voices from policymakers, creators, technologists and civil society, the series underscores that no single legal fix will suffice and that regulating deepfakes demands an interdisciplinary, globally informed response.Georgia Jenkins took on the growing presence of AI performers in advertising, using the festive slowdown as a springboard to examine new New York laws on synthetic performers and post-mortem digital replicas. Moving between disclosure duties, consumer protection and publicity rights, she explored how recent legislative moves respond to the quiet insertion of AI “faces” into brand marketing, while questioning whether transparency rules can really keep pace with global, fast-moving uses of digital doubles.
Friday Fantasies
And, fittingly for the final stretch of the year, Georgia Jenkins’ Friday Fantasies kept one eye on the festivities and the other on what lies ahead, rounding up IP-related events, calls for papers and news worth bookmarking before the lights are switched off for the holiday break.
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