At the end of April the international domain name organisation ICANN will be launching new generic top-level domains, for example .store and .web, under which anyone can apply to be catalogued. The launch of new top-level domains involves both opportunities and challenges for trademark owners, and for that reason it is important to create a strategy for your trademarks and for registration of domains.

Section 18 of the Marketing Act creates a total prohibition against purchase-dependent competitions. Case law from the EU, however, has shown that the ban is in contravention of the EEA Agreement, which is also the conclusion of EFTA’s supervisory body ESA. In the light of this the Government has, in a Bill dated 4 April of this year, proposed that the prohibition be abolished. The Bill is to be considered on 6 June.

The Government has presented proposals designed to strengthen the protection of industrial property, inter alia in designs and trademarks. The Bill presented to the King-in-Council on 15 March contains proposed amendments to the enforcement rules of the legislation on protection of industrial property (that is to say, the Patent Act, the Integrated Circuits Lay-Out Act, the Plant Breeders Act, the Design Act and the Trademark Act).