technology – Page 4 – IP Law Watch

Chocolate Slab-Gate

Jun 21 2018

Waitrose has agreed to stop producing “copycat” chocolate slabs following an ongoing dispute with Hotel Chocolat.

Hotel Chocolat accused Waitrose of infringing its intellectual property rights in its distinctive curved shaped chocolate slab. This was further reinforced when individuals were taking to Twitter to question whether Hotel Chocolat were actually producing the chocolate slabs for Waitrose. Hotel Chocolat requested that Waitrose removed the offending chocolate slabs from sale.

Getting closer to put the UPC into force

Apr 26 2018

April 26, 2018 is a remarkable date: first it’s World IP Day celebrating IP around the world. Second, and this is unique, the British IP Minister Sam Gyimah MP announced that the UK ratified the Unified Patent Court Agreement (UPC Agreement). By doing so the UK agreed to be bound to both the UPC agreement and the UPC’s Protocol on Privileges and Immunities (PPI). The UPC will be a court common to the contracting member states within the EU having exclusive competence in respect of European Patents and European Patents with unitary effect.

U.S. Federal Court rules embedding a Tweet could be copyright infringement

Feb 22 2018

A federal district court in New York recently held that embedded tweets could violate the exclusive right to display a copyrighted image. In 2016, Plaintiff Justin Goldman snapped a photo of New England Patriots quarterback, Tom Brady, with Boston Celtics General Manager, Danny Ainge. Goldman then uploaded the photo to his Snapchat Story. The image went viral, making its way onto Twitter, where it was uploaded and re-tweeted by several users. From there, media outlets and blogs published articles which featured the photo by embedding the tweets on their webpages. Goldman sued the media outlets for copyright infringement.

High Court of Australia Finds Claims for Isolated Genetic Material not Patentable Subject Matter

Oct 08 2015

On 7 October 2015, the High Court of Australia (High Court) issued its decision[1] in the long running dispute concerning Myriad Genetics, Inc.’s (Myriad) patent relating to an isolated nucleic acid coding for mutant or polymorphic BRCA1 polypeptide. Mutations in the BRCA1 gene can serve as indicators of a woman’s risk of developing breast cancer.

In a unanimous decision, the High Court found that claims directed to the isolated nucleic acid are invalid on the basis that they are not a ‘manner of manufacture’ and therefore not patentable subject matter. The High Court took the view that the claimed invention would extend the scope of the concept of “manner of manufacture” and that this was not something which was appropriate for courts to do. In light of the High Court’s decision, it will be interesting to see whether there is a legislative response to this issue.

Australian ISPs Ordered to Hand Over Customer Details in P2P Copyright Action

Apr 09 2015

Dallas Buyers Club LLC v iiNet Limited [2015] FCA 317

In November 2014, IP Law Watch reported on attempts by the rights holder of the film Dallas Buyers Club to compel Australian ISPs to disclose the identities of BitTorrent users who allegedly shared copies of the film.

On 7 April 2015, Justice Perram of the Federal Court of Australia ruled in favour of Dallas Buyers Club LLC and Voltage Pictures LLC, ordering six ISPs to disclose the details of 4,726 customers.

The judgment has been widely reported in the Australian media as a landmark decision and a game changer in the battle regarding online piracy. In fact, the kind of order granted by Justice Perram is far from revolutionary. For many years, civil procedure rules at both state and federal levels have enabled a party to seek orders requiring a third party to produce documents or give evidence as to the identity of a prospective respondent. There are decisions going back as far as the 1970s in which this kind of preliminary discovery order has been granted (see for example Exley v Wyong Shire Council (10 December 1976, Master Allen, unreported) and Stewart v Miller [1979] 2 NSWLR 128).

Recording Trade Mark Licence Agreements in the Middle East

Dec 09 2014

Many businesses operate in the Middle East through entities licensed to use their trade marks. These businesses should be aware that many Middle Eastern countries require that trade mark licence agreements are recorded with the respective Trade Mark Registers or other named authorities in these countries. Not recording a licence agreement could lead to monetary penalties being imposed on the licensee or an inability to enforce trade marks against third party infringers.

For example, Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates each have more or less equivalent provisions in which a trade mark licence agreement must be in writing, it cannot include unregistered trade marks and it has no legal effect against third parties unless it is recorded on the respective Trade Mark Registers (or other named authorities in these countries). Each of these countries has slightly different processes and requirements for seeking registration of a trade mark licence agreement. Read More

Big Data Round-Ups

Dec 02 2014

Our October 30th blog introduced and explained the concept of Big Data. Here we look at some of the pitfalls of collecting the massive amounts of small data that combine to become Big Data. We imagine the ranges of bits and bytes of small data that combine to create Big Data as herds of grazing horses susceptible to round up and inclusion in a Big Data corral. Read More

Copyright Reform in the European Union: Big Changes Announced, but are They Possible?

Nov 27 2014

The new European Commission President, Jean Claude Junker, included in his October 22nd inaugural speech as his second priority an “impulse to Europe’s Digital Single Market”, which should include “modernising copyright rules in the light of the digital revolution and changed consumer behaviour”. Read More

AUD50,000+ Reasons for Employees to Think Twice About Their Employer’s Copyright Works and Confidential Information

Nov 21 2014

Employees often like to take a little with them when leaving employment, some might say as a ‘memento’, others might say as outright theft of the intellectual property of their employer. In a recent decision, an ex employee was ordered to pay his former employer AUD50,000 in damages for copying over 60GB of data prior to leaving his job to work for a competitor.

Downloaded Dallas Buyers Club? The Bill is in the Mail

Nov 04 2014

The film Dallas Buyers Club won critical acclaim and earned Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto Academy Awards for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor respectively. Now the rights holder of the film, Dallas Buyers Club LLC, is looking to pursue Australians who it believes have illegally downloaded the film.

The company has issued proceedings in the Federal Court of Australia against iiNet Limited and four other internet service providers, seeking orders to have them disclose the identities of the alleged pirates. iiNet has indicated that it will defend the action. Read More

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