Abion

What I love about Abion Accento chats is that they are never just conversations about work. They are meaningful exchanges that can take unexpected turns, become a lot of fun, and reveal just how much we have in common with people in our industry. Stephen Coates is someone I’ve known for a long time and have had the pleasure of working with in different settings. But what I enjoy most about Steve is the way he looks at the world: with curiosity, attention, and the genuine care of a really good waiter who wants to make sure every guest feels seen. Steve is not Amazon. He is not Twitter. He is not Operation Bluebird Inc. He is not the prestigious firms he has worked for. And he is not, even on his own, Coates IP. Steve is Steve. A real person, not an AI-generated version of a professional persona. He can be controversial, provocative, incredibly smart and a lot of fun. And that’s exactly what makes conversations like this one worth having. I hope you enjoy this Abion Accento chat as much as I did! #AbionAccento #IntellectualProperty #IPCommunity #PeopleBehindTheProfession #ThePodcastWithTheGreenJacket

🚨EUIPO SME Fund Update! Good news for SMEs! The EUIPO SME Fund has announced that applications for Vouchers 1 and 2 will reopen during the first week of November. The exact date is yet to be confirmed. These funding opportunities reopens: 𝗩𝗼𝘂𝗰𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝟭 (𝗜𝗣 𝗦𝗰𝗮𝗻): Get up to 90% of the eligible costs reimbursed (up to €1,620) for a practical assessment of your business’s intellectual property, helping you identify key IP assets and understand how to protect them. 𝗩𝗼𝘂𝗰𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝟮 (𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗱𝗲 𝗠𝗮𝗿𝗸 & 𝗗𝗲𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗻 𝗥𝗲𝗴𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻): Up to 75% (up to €700) reimbursement of the official fee when you apply to register a trade mark or design with the EUIPO or another authority within the EU. Åsa Olajos, Lead Senior Associate at Abion advises: "If you’re considering protecting your intellectual property, now is the time to prepare. With limited funding and high demand, being ready to apply as soon as the fund reopens could make all the difference." ⚠️Need help getting ready? Speak to one of our experts: https://lnkd.in/eHsuz34b #EUIPO #SMEFund #IntellectualProperty

I’ll be in Los Angeles on 2–3 November for the 2026 VGBA Los Angeles Summit 🎮 I’m looking forward to catching up with colleagues. If you’re attending too, I’d love to connect. Feel free to drop me a message! See you there! #VGBA #VideoGameLaw

Confession: I became a Knicks fan last year. Before anyone shouts bandwagon, I’d like it on record that this started with a trip to Madison Square Garden. Admittedly that trip was days after they’d won the NBA Cup, and six months before they won the Championship, so I accept the timing doesn’t look great. My total contribution to the championship run? One game in person. A home loss to a pre-LeBron Sixers. Freshly crowned Cup winners, a sold out Garden, and I got to watch them lose. So I can say with some confidence they won it despite me, not because of me. The title defence hasn’t exactly picked up where they left off either. Ring night ended in a home defeat to the Sixers, followed by losses to Boston and Orlando, making them the first defending champions to open 0-3 in over a decade. I wasn’t even in the building this time, so I’m officially withdrawing my claim to be the problem. Watching all this has got me thinking about what happens the morning after a moment like a first title in 53 years. The parade isn’t the only thing that moves fast. Within days of a big win, marketplaces fill up with “official” championship tees, hoodies and caps the team never licensed. Clone stores appear on lookalike domains, with thousands of fake sites reportedly set up during the Finals alone. Social ads push merch that either never arrives or arrives in a state you wouldn’t wear to the gym. And the fake shirt is often the least of it. Buy from one of those sites and the follow up text telling you your payment failed or your parcel can’t be delivered is the real play. That’s phishing, built to harvest card details and empty bank accounts. The fan loses money, and the brand takes the hit to its reputation. The brands that cope best are the ones that did the boring work years earlier: • Trade marks registered in the markets that matter, not just at home • Monitoring already running, so the spike is spotted on day one rather than week three • Customs recordals in place, so fakes are stopped at the border before they reach a seller • A clear enforcement playbook, so nobody is working it out from scratch mid-surge. None of it is glamorous. Much like 53 years of rebuilding, it mostly feels like nothing is happening until suddenly it really matters. And as this season is proving, staying on top is a different job to getting there, for brands as much as basketball teams. Anyway, next time I’m at the Garden, I’m owed a win. #BrandProtection #AntiCounterfeiting #IntellectualProperty #Knicks https://lnkd.in/e3ZvV_9D

💄 It’s 1924, and Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel introduces the bottle shape that would become synonymous with Chanel No. 5. Fast forward 100 years, and Romanian-based Chaos Perfumes launches a new fragrance and applies for protection of its bottle as a 3D trade mark. The bottle shares several similarities with the Chanel No. 5 shape, with the name “CHAOS” adding another nod to CHANEL. Chanel then filed oppositions against the two applications for 3D shape marks. This led the EUIPO to request that Chanel provide evidence of both reputation and genuine use. What did the EUIPO - European Union Intellectual Property Office decide? 🔗 Read the analysis by Eszter Kurtan, Legal Director at Abion: https://lnkd.in/dGBpmbNy

What does Twitter nostalgia mean for Millennials? 🔵🐦 Stephen Coates talks about the nostalgia behind Tweet.app and building a platform he could feel comfortable letting his own children use. 🎧 Listen to Abion Accento on your podcast player or watch on YouTube: https://lnkd.in/dfyRymUg/?utm_campaign=AbionAccento%255BBranding%255D&utm_source=linkedin&utm_medium=paid&utm_id=1172108553&hsa_acc=512502976&hsa_cam=1172108553&hsa_grp=897343923&hsa_ad=1593040543&hsa_net=linkedin&hsa_ver=3 Abion Accento is a podcast series featuring conversations with leading names in the IP industry. Hosted by Lorenzo Litta, Chief Business Officer at Abion.