‘Proposals by academics to allow new defences against trade mark infringement to be created in the future should be resisted, a trade mark law specialist has warned.’
OUT-LAW.com, 6th October 2014
Source: www.out-law.com
‘An academy school has lost an action for passing-off taken against a nearby private college.’
Local Government Lawyer, 2nd October 2014
Source: www.localgovernment lawyer.co.uk
‘A law has come into effect that permits UK citizens to make copies of CDs, MP3s, DVDs, Blu-rays and e-books. Consumers are allowed to keep the duplicates on local storage or in the cloud. While it is legal to make back-ups for personal use, it remains an offence to share the data with friends or family.’
BBC News, 1st October 2014
Source: www.bbc.co.uk
Deckmyn and another v Vandersteen and others (Case C-201/13; ECLI:EU:C:2014:2132; [2014] WLR (D) 385
‘The concept of “parody” within the meaning of article 5(3)(k) of Parliament and Council Directive 2001/29/EC was an autonomous concept of EU law and its essential characteristics were to evoke an existing work, while being noticeably different from it, and secondly, to constitute an expression of humour or mockery. The concept was not subject to the conditions that the parody should display an original character of its own, other than that of displaying noticeable differences with respect to the original parodied work; that it could reasonably be attributed to a person other than the author of the original work itself; and it should relate to the original work itself or mention the source of the parodied work. However, the application of the exception for parody, within the meaning of article 5(3)(k) of Directive had to strike a fair balance between the interests and rights of persons referred to in articles 2 and 3 of the Directive, and the freedom of expression of the user of a protected work who was relying on the exception for parody and it was for the national court to determine, in the light of all the circumstances of the case, whether the application of the exception for parody preserved a fair balance.’
WLR Daily, 3rd September 2014
Source: www.iclr.co.uk
‘On 14 May 2014 the Intellectual Property Bill received royal assent. The Act made some far reaching changes in patents, registered design and unregistered design right law which I summarized in “Reflections on the Intellectual Property Act 2014” 7 June 2014 4-5 IP Tech and discussed in detail in “How the Intellectual Property Act 2014 changes British Patent Law” 21 June 2014 JD Supra, “How the Intellectual Property Act 2014 changes British Registered Design Law” 19 June 2014 JD Supra and “How the Intellectual Property Act 2014 will change British Unregistered Design Right Law” 11 June 2014 JD Supra 11 June 2014. On 28 Aug 2014 Lady Neville-Rolfe, Minister for Intellectual Property, signed The Intellectual Property Act 2014 (Commencement No. 3 and Transitional Provisions) Order 2014 which will bring many of the provisions of the Act into force.’
NIPC Law, 6th September 2014
Source: www.nipclaw.blogspot.co.uk
‘Criminal penalties could be pursued against intentional copiers of either UK or Community registered designs that do not have rights holders’ permission for their actions from the beginning of next month.’
OUT-LAW.com, 5th September 2014
Source: www.out-law.com
‘“I have paid a developer handsomely for my company’s website so my company owns the Copyright? Right?” Well, not exactly.
The question itself is predicated on a totally incorrect assumption of legal principle of their being a single copyright pertaining to a single site. When considered carefully, a website may consist of a large number of separate elements including music (or jingles), text, photographs, the font of the characters making up the site, colours, style, “look and feel”, language, sequence in which the web pages appear, forms, drawings and designs, and not forgetting the domain name itself. Each and every-one of those features attracts its own copyright and a website might therefore be correctly regarded as a ‘bundle’ of different rights protected separately by copyright law. How does this work? Let us begin by considering any music appearing on the website.’
Zenith Chambers, 12th August 2014
Source: www.zenithchambers.co.uk
‘The application of intellectual property law in our modern age is fraught with complexities. As societies and technologies develop, situations invariably arise that the drafters of legislation had perhaps not considered.’
Technology Law Update, 8th August 2014
Source: www.technology-law-blog.co.uk
‘In Ifejika v Ifejika and another [2011] EWPCC 31 (23 Nov 2011) His Honour Judge Birss QC (as he then was) ordered among other things an inquiry (or alternatively, by implication, an account) in relation to a lens care product the design rights in which he held to have been infringed by the claimant’s brother by of a competing product. The claimant elected an account of profits and this came on before HH Judge Hacon on 17 June 2014 (Ifejika v Ifejika and another [2014] EWHC 2625 (IPEC) (31 July 2014)).’
NIPC Law, 3rd August 2014
Source: www.nipclaw.blogspot.co.uk
‘The Supreme Court has sided with the makers of Total yoghurt, Fage, in refusing US rival Chobani permission to appeal the definition of Greek yoghurt.’
The Lawyer, 30th July 2014
Source: www.thelawyer.com
‘New rights to make private copies of copyrighted works, make free use of copyrighted material in works of parody and quote extracts from copyright protected books, audio and video content will be introduced into UK law from October.’
OUT-LAW.co, 30th July 2014
Source: www.out-law.com
‘Work on a new online copyright enforcement regime under the Digital Economy Act (DEA) has been shelved now that rights holders and internet service providers (ISPs) have voluntarily agreed a framework for educating alleged infringers about the harm of piracy, the UK government has confirmed.’
OUT-LAW.com, 24th July 2014
Source: www.out-law.com
‘Article 6 of Council Regulation (EC) No 6/2002 of 12 December 2001 on Community designs meant that, in order for a design to be considered to have individual character, the overall impression which that design produced on the informed user had to be different from that produced on such a user, not by a combination of features taken in isolation and drawn from a number of earlier designs, but by one or more earlier designs, taken individually. Article 85(2) meant that, in order for a Community design court to treat an unregistered Community design as valid, the right holder of that design was not required to prove that it had individual character within the meaning of article 6, but need only indicate what constituted the individual character of that design, ie, indicated what, in his view, were the element or elements of the design concerned which gave it its individual character.’
WLR Daily, 19th June 2014
Source: www.iclr.co.uk
‘Article 3(1) and (3) of Parliament and Council Directive 2008/95/EC of 22 October 2008 to approximate the laws of the member states relating to trade marks precluded an interpretation of national law according to which, in the context of proceedings raising the question whether a contourless colour mark had acquired a distinctive character through use, it was necessary in every case that a consumer survey indicated a degree of recognition of at least 70%.’
WLR Daily, 19th June 2014
Source: www.iclr.co.uk
‘Copying content from online journals or other texts for the purposes of non-commercial research is no longer an infringement of UK copyright laws providing copiers have lawful access to that content and they, generally, make “a sufficient acknowledgement” of the original work.’
OUT-LAW.com, 2nd June 2014
Source: www.out-law.com
‘The High Court has found a man liable for copyright infringement carried out on the file sharing Newzbin websites and ruled that he also part of a conspiracy to infringe copyrights and defraud film studios.’
OUT-LAW.com, 23rd May 2014
Source: www.out-law.com
‘Solicitors organisation warns that too much valuable, intellectual property is in danger of being lost when we die.’
The Guardian, 16th April 2014
Source: www.guardian.co.uk
‘Patents, trade marks and design rights are valuable intellectual property (IP) rights and vital to economic growth. They ensure that research and innovation is encouraged and rewarded. And, for some small businesses, they can represent their most significant assets. The law provides effective ways to enforce IP rights but these can be misused to drive competitors from the market. In a report published today, the Law Commission is recommending reforms that will allow individuals and businesses to protect their IP rights but not at the expense of new ideas and inventions.’
Law Commission, 15th April 2014
Source: www.justice.gov.uk/lawcommission
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