By Matthieu Dhenne (Attorney-at-Law (Paris Bar), PhD (University Paris 2 Panthéon-Assas)) on Nov 25, 2020 10:17 am 1. In his 1913 essay Totem und Taboo, Freud defined taboo as a prohibition related to what is considered sacred or impure. The famous psychoanalyst insists on the irrationality of the phenomenon. Thus, compulsory licensing, which is often seen as an impure danger, seems to be a kind of taboo for intellectual property specialists. But...
By Thorsten Bausch (Hoffmann Eitle) on Nov 24, 2020 05:02 pm Let’s start with a bit of etymology today. The official translation of “European Patent Office” into German is “Europäisches Patentamt”, the latter obviously being a composite of Patent and Amt.The German word “Amt” is derived from medieval German “ambt” or “ambahte“, which means servant. That is, the prime function of an Amt is to serve...