SCT Advances on Industrial Design Law and Practice

At the conclusion of the meeting, SCT Chairperson, Mr. Adil El Maliki, Director General of the Patent and Trademark Office of Morocco, said that "all delegations supported the advancement of the work of the SCT on industrial design law and practice and that the 24^th session made significant progress in that regard.” 

 

While some delegations suggested the convening of a diplomatic conference for the adoption of a treaty on industrial design registration formalities in the 2012/13 biennium, other delegations said that further discussions were needed before convening a diplomatic conference. The next session of the SCT, will meet from March 28 to April 1, 2011, will examine a revised text on industrial design law and practice.

 

In addition, the SCT discussed the expansion of the Domain Name System (DNS) planned by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). A number of delegations expressed the need for effective protection of intellectual property rights in the DNS. Several delegations expressed concern regarding initiatives at ICANN to review and possibly amend the WIPO-initiated Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP). Moreover, the SCT supported the WIPO secretariat’s contribution to policy making in the area of Internet Domain Names. 

 

Also, the next session of the SCT will examine new forms of trademark use on the Internet, in particular in auction sites, search engines and social networks, with a view to determining whether those types of trademark uses are currently adequately addressed.

 

On the basis of the responses to a questionnaire prepared by the secretariat, the SCT considered the issue of the use of names of states as trademarks and decided to continue its work on the basis of a draft reference document for consideration at its next session. The reference document will be based on the SCT’s work in that area so far.