Covidiot, AI Patents & more…Keep up with what’s been happening this week in our intellectual property news round-up…

US Supreme Court rules in favour of Booking.com, allowing trademarks for generic website names. 

On Tuesday, the US Supreme Court issued an unusual ruling on the status of website names, deciding that “Booking.com” is eligible for a federal trademark even though it’s based on a generic term. 

Twitter deletes Trump’s photo of himself after NY Times copyright complaint

On Wednesday, Twitter pulled down a photo Trump posted of himself included in a June 30 tweet, after the New York TImes Co. filed a DMCA takedown request reporting the president’s post as infringing its copyright. 

Samsung, IBM, Tencent lead AI patent race, Europe lags

Three companies – Samsung, IBM and Tencent – dominate the global AI patent race over the past 10 years, while fierce competition between the US and China overshadows other countries and regions, including the EU. 

COVID Culture. Covidiot. Coronavirus trademark hopefuls flood patent office

More than 1,500 trademark applications have been filed with the U.S Patent and Trademark Office for variations on the COVID-19 and coronavirus theme. 

And finally, proof that we have learnt nothing from Planet of the Apes…

Patents on genetically modified chimpanzees scrapped

The European Patent Office has disallowed two patents that include great apes, the family of primates that humans also belong to. A US firm had registered the patents for genetically modified chimpanzees.