tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-66314059226071162032024-03-18T03:03:50.450+00:00JIPLPThe blog of the <i>Journal of Intellectual Property Law and Practice</i>. Here's where editorial panellists, readers and contributors can come together and share their views on all aspects of IP law and practice. Join us!Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger830125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6631405922607116203.post-84560721778281123262024-02-23T06:52:00.001+00:002024-02-23T06:52:32.687+00:00JIPLP special issue to celebrate the first anniversary of the UPC<div style="text-align: justify;">The <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jiplp"><b>Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice</b></a> (JIPLP) is delighted to announce a special issue to celebrate the first anniversary of the Unified Patent Court (UPC). The special issue, which will be published later this year, will be jointly edited by (in alphabetical order) <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/stefbar/"><b>Stefano Barazza</b></a> (JIPLP editor), <a href="https://powellgilbert.com/people/penny-gilbert/"><b>Penny Gilbert</b></a> (Powell Gilbert), <b><a href="https://www.bardehle.com/de/team/mueller-stoy-tilman">Tilman Müller-Stoy</a> </b>(Bardehle Pagenberg), and <a href="https://www.freshfields.com/en-gb/contacts/find-a-lawyer/s/stothers-christopher/"><b>Christopher Stothers</b></a> (Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer).</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUlP9Fit3pR1-iiClOs3Kf8cVqjSx8cTRKSEbuoXwgSAj3xVri-Hcb5LxMvDucYXuKT2vR0AJcZFLl2CPJ-N8-JldzmsvRLW5gjUWMs2NEjlcmDwm87ONfRGqSgs9hi2z_fJwwRsS0cmRN0XF2tpbcHexjq4CXMPey8MsGzULP1DReGefUuPNmJwuTn-eo/s1284/Screenshot%202024-02-23%20at%2007.50.45.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="236" data-original-width="1284" height="74" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUlP9Fit3pR1-iiClOs3Kf8cVqjSx8cTRKSEbuoXwgSAj3xVri-Hcb5LxMvDucYXuKT2vR0AJcZFLl2CPJ-N8-JldzmsvRLW5gjUWMs2NEjlcmDwm87ONfRGqSgs9hi2z_fJwwRsS0cmRN0XF2tpbcHexjq4CXMPey8MsGzULP1DReGefUuPNmJwuTn-eo/w400-h74/Screenshot%202024-02-23%20at%2007.50.45.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Interested authors are invited to submit articles that focus on the lessons learnt during the first year of operation of the UPC. We are particularly interested in articles analysing <b>substantive or procedural matters in light of the emerging case law of the UPC</b> (e.g. transparency and public access to documents, provisional measures, service of documents, claim construction, bifurcation, language of proceedings, expert evidence, internal coherence/consistency, etc.). We also encourage contributions that, <b>on the basis of the UPC experience so far</b>, focus on <b>broader aspects</b>, such as litigation strategy, the role of the UPC in the global patent system, the relationship between the UPC and other courts/jurisdictions, preliminary evaluations of its effectiveness and overall functioning, or suggestions for improvements to the UPC system. While empirical and statistical studies are welcome, please note that these must be accompanied by a substantive legal analysis.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Articles should have a length comprised <b>between 3,000 and 8,000 words (footnotes included)</b> and comply with<b> <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jiplp/pages/General_Instructions">JIPLP author guidelines</a></b>. Please note that JIPLP uses <a href="https://www.law.ox.ac.uk/oscola"><b>OSCOLA</b></a> as its citation style.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The deadline for submissions, which can be only made through the <a href="https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/jiplap"><b>JIPLP submission site</b></a>, falls on the first UPC anniversary, <b>1 June 2024</b>. No late submissions can be considered for this special issue.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">JIPLP is a peer-reviewed scholarly journal, so all the articles received will undergo a review process. In this sense, submission of an article will not automatically entail its acceptance for publication.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">For any questions and/or to inquire about the suitability of a certain topic/angle, please contact JIPLP’s Managing Editor, Sarah Harris, by <a href="mailto:sarah.harris.contractor@oup.com?subject=JIPLP%20UPC%20Special%20Issue"><b>email</b></a>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">We look forward to receiving your contributions!</div>Eleonora Rosatihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05629420303968805446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6631405922607116203.post-14244259509024819622022-09-12T11:37:00.000+01:002022-09-12T11:37:03.936+01:00Announcing the JIPLP Special Issue on IP and the Green Economy: Call for Articles<div style="text-align: justify;">The <b><a href="https://academic.oup.com/jiplp">Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice (JIPLP)</a> </b>is delighted to announce that, in the first half of 2023, it will publish a special issue entirely devoted to the relationship between intellectual property (IP) and the Green Economy, in particular the Circular Economy.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This special issue will be jointly edited by (in alphabetical order) <a href="https://www.swansea.ac.uk/staff/stefano.barazza/"><b>Stefano Barazza</b></a>, <a href="https://law.tamu.edu/faculty-staff/find-people/faculty-profiles/irene-calboli"><b>Irene Calboli</b></a>, <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-harris-babb4a1/"><b>Sarah Harris</b></a>, <a href="https://www.ip.mpg.de/en/persons/kur-annette.html"><b>Annette Kur</b></a>, and <b><a href="https://www.su.se/english/profiles/elro0365-1.442578">Eleonora Rosati</a>.</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">We invite interested authors to submit articles addressing Green Economy issues from an IP perspective. Potential topics include – <u>but are not limited to!</u> – the following:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><ul><li>Sustainability and IP;</li><li>Right to repair;</li><li>Greenwashing and IP;</li><li>Green trade marks;</li><li>Craft and industrial GIs;</li><li>Exhaustion / first sale doctrine as applied to the Green / Circular Economy (e.g., upcycling);</li><li>Green patents.</li></ul></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Articles should have a length comprised <b>between 2,000 and 5,000 words (footnotes included)</b> and comply with <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jiplp/pages/General_Instructions"><b>JIPLP author guidelines</b></a>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The deadline for submissions, which can be only made through the <a href="https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/jiplap"><b>JIPLP submission site</b></a>, is <b>23 January 2023</b>. No late submissions can be considered for this special issue.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">JIPLP is a peer-reviewed scholarly journal so all articles that are received will undergo a review process. In this sense, submission of an article will not automatically entail its acceptance for publication.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">For any questions and/or to inquire about the suitability of a certain topic/angle, please <a href="mailto:sarah.harris.contractor@oup.com%20?subject=JIPLP%20Special%20Issue%20on%20IP%20and%20the%20Green%20Economy"><b>contact JIPLP Managing Editor, Sarah Harris, by email</b></a>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">We look forward to receiving your contributions!</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div>Eleonora Rosatihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05629420303968805446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6631405922607116203.post-88177003741131725682022-07-29T16:19:00.000+01:002022-07-29T16:19:27.775+01:00The Authors' Take - Hosting public domain into a minefield: the resistance to art. 14 of the DSM Directive and to the related rules that transpose it into national law<h2 style="text-align: center;">Hosting public domain into a minefield: the resistance to art. 14 of the DSM Directive and to the related rules that transpose it into national law</h2><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i>by <a href="#">Cristiana Sappa</a></i></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Art. 14 of the <b><a href="https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2019/790/oj">DSM Directive</a></b> plays a role for both economic and non-economic exploitations of works of visual art’s reproductions. The rule helps provide access to information on cultural heritage and therefore facilitates the educational mission of bodies managing cultural heritage. Besides this, this provision also introduces some additional freedom for exploiting some visual art-related material and elaborating derivative works. These initiatives can be taken by both market operators and public sector bodies managing cultural heritage. Basically, art. 14 confirms the policy initiatives according to which what is in the public domain shall remain into the public domain. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">However, art. 14 is only a prima facie manifesto for public domain, and it merely refers to works of visual art. Its aim is under threat from different perspectives, i.e. copyright and neighbouring rights, let alone unfair practices, contractual provisions and national rules on cultural heritage alone. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">First, this threat depends on the low requirements needed to enjoy copyright protection. The threshold of originality is so low that many reproductions of works of visual art can easily access copyright protection, including 3D reproductions that are currently more and more used, also for elaborating a growing number of derivative works, such as augmented or virtual reality experiences. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Secondly, several neighbouring rights can interfere with art. 14 and limit its impact on public domain. The reference goes not only to the (obvious) protection on non-creative photographs, but also to critical editions, editions principes, that some countries introduced. It also points out to the sui generis protection of databases, even though the latter is somehow limited by the <b><a href="https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A32019L1024">Directive on Open Data</a></b>. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Overall, to accomplish art. 14’s political goal as initially thought, courts shall interpret it in a consistent fashion with modern approaches favouring wide circulation and re-use of cultural heritage’s information.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>[This is an Authors' Take post, which provides readers with an insight into current IP scholarship, featuring preliminary comments and thoughts from authors of articles accepted for publication in forthcoming issues of the Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice (OUP). The full text of this contribution will be made available on <a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/6631405922607116203/790259247869875209#"><b>Advance Access</b></a> soon]</i></div>Eleonora Rosatihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05629420303968805446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6631405922607116203.post-77805314435142697512022-07-19T14:26:00.007+01:002022-07-19T14:26:43.132+01:00The Authors' Take - Uncovering Trade Secrets in China: An Empirical Study of Civil Litigation 2010–2020<h2 style="text-align: center;">Uncovering Trade Secrets in China: An Empirical Study of Civil Litigation 2010–2020</h2><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><h4 style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;"><i>by <a href="https://www.law.cuhk.edu.hk/app/people/prof-jyh-an-lee/">Jyh-An Lee</a>, <a href="https://www.law.cuhk.edu.hk/app/people/jingwen-liu/">Jingwen Liu</a>, and <a href="https://www.jonesday.com/en/lawyers/h/haifeng-huang">Haifeng Huang</a></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div></h4><div style="text-align: justify;">Trading partners of and foreign investors in China have claimed that trade-secret protection in the country is far from adequate. This intuition is rooted in China’s lack of a stand-alone trade-secret act, deficiencies in China’s civil enforcement mechanisms, the unsatisfactory win rate for plaintiffs and damages awarded, and the excessive burden-of-proof requirements imposed on trade-secret owners. Although these issues have been controversial for more than two decades, relevant debates have often lacked even the barest empirical support.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Against this backdrop, and as a byproduct of the US-China trade disputes in 2018 and 2019, China amended the Anti-Unfair Competition Law (AUCL), being the primary legislation that reflects trade secrets, in 2019 to further strengthen its trade-secret protection. The 2019 Amendment of the AUCL had, among others, substantially reformed the damages and evidence rules so as to lift the damages cap and partially reverse the burden of proof in cases concerning trade secret misappropriation. While these reforms have come under the spotlight, their actual impact has yet to be elucidated.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In this article, we investigate all published civil-litigation cases pertaining to trade-secret misappropriation in China from 2010 through 2020. Our empirical findings, which cover various aspects of trade-secret law enforcement in the country, paint a realistic picture of (1) the number and the spatio-temporal distribution of trade secret litigation, (2) the win rates of trade-secret holders and their available remedies, (3) the percentage of cases involving departing employees, and (4) foreign parties’ participation in the private enforcement of trade secrets. By presenting the empirical data with contextual analyses, this article provides a rigorous reflection of the features and patterns of private trade-secret enforcement in China during the studied period.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>[This is an Authors' Take post, which provides readers with an insight into current IP scholarship, featuring preliminary comments and thoughts from authors of articles accepted for publication in forthcoming issues of the Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice (OUP). The full text of this contribution will be made available on <a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/6631405922607116203/790259247869875209#"><b>Advance Access</b></a> soon]</i></div>Eleonora Rosatihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05629420303968805446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6631405922607116203.post-9893505008059886092022-04-29T10:19:00.004+01:002022-04-29T11:28:40.016+01:00The national transpositions of the DSM Directive: JIPLP Special DSM Issue and live webinar<div style="text-align: justify;">In late 2021, we launched a call for articles for a special issue entirely devoted to the national transpositions of the DSM Directive 2019/790.</div> <div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">We are now delighted to inform our readers that the ‘DSM Special Issue’ is just about to be released and that, on 8 June 2022, <a href="https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-national-transpositions-of-the-dsm-directive-jiplp-special-dsm-issue-tickets-330452039947"><b>we will be hosting a webinar</b> </a>during which the Authors of accepted articles will present and discuss the various national approaches to the implementation of some of the Directive’s most important provisions.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Join us for an afternoon of DSM-focused discussions!</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: justify;">Speakers</h3><div style="text-align: justify;"><ul><li>Bernardo Calabrese, author of <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jiplp/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/jiplp/jpac026/6566075?redirectedFrom=fulltext"><b>Scientific TDM exception and communication to the public: did Italians do it better … or at least not worse?</b></a></li><li>Ana Lazarova, author of <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jiplp/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/jiplp/jpac029/6566788?redirectedFrom=fulltext"><b>Bulgaria falls into all the traps set by Article 5 of the CDSM Directive</b></a></li><li>Zyad Loutfi, author of <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jiplp/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/jiplp/jpac027/6565798?redirectedFrom=fulltext"><b>Press publishers’ right in France: a tale of Odyssean gods</b></a></li><li>Caterina Sganga and Magali Contardi, authors of <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jiplp/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/jiplp/jpac028/6565568?redirectedFrom=fulltext"><b>The new Italian press publishers’ right: creative, fairness-oriented… and invalid?</b></a></li><li>Michalina Kowala, author of <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jiplp/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/jiplp/jpac037/6575485?redirectedFrom=fulltext"><b>The Polish transposition of the press publishers’ right: waiting for the miracle?</b></a></li><li>Samuli Melart, author of <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jiplp/advance-article/doi/10.1093/jiplp/jpac030/6565569?searchresult=1"><b>The Finnish transposition of Article 17 of Directive 2019/790: progress or regress?</b></a></li><li>Simona Lavagnini, author of <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jiplp/advance-article/doi/10.1093/jiplp/jpac032/6574553?searchresult=1"><b>The Italian implementation of Article 17 of Directive 2019/790: complaints, appeals and the new powers of AGCOM</b></a></li><li>Miquel Peguera, author of <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jiplp/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/jiplp/jpac034/6572327?redirectedFrom=fulltext"><b>Spanish transposition of Arts. 15 and 17 of the DSM Directive: overview of selected issues</b></a></li><li>Ludovico Bossi and Jacopo Ciani Sciolla, authors of <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jiplp/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/jiplp/jpac033/6572326?redirectedFrom=fulltext"><b>The transposition of the transparency obligation pursuant to Article 19 Directive (EU) 790/2019: an Italian perspective</b></a></li><li>Jelizaveta Juřičková, author of <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jiplp/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/jiplp/jpac031/6566076?redirectedFrom=fulltext"><b>Something old, something new: Czech transposition of disputes under the DSM Directive</b></a></li></ul></div><h3 style="text-align: justify;">Chair</h3><div style="text-align: justify;"><ul><li>Eleonora Rosati, <b><a href="https://academic.oup.com/jiplp/advance-article/doi/10.1093/jiplp/jpac035/6574933">Editor of the DSM Special Issue</a></b> </li></ul><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: justify;">For further information and to register, just <a href="https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-national-transpositions-of-the-dsm-directive-jiplp-special-dsm-issue-tickets-330452039947">click here</a>.</h3><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div> Eleonora Rosatihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05629420303968805446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6631405922607116203.post-78624381061159519602021-12-06T11:48:00.000+00:002021-12-06T11:48:27.963+00:00Announcing the JIPLP Special Issue on the national transpositions of the DSM Directive: Call for Articles!<div style="text-align: justify;">The <i>Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice </i>(JIPLP) is delighted to announce a Call for Articles for its forthcoming special issue on the <i>national</i> transpositions of the DSM Directive 2019/790, which will be published in 2022.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Interested authors are invited to submit articles in the range of 3,500-6,000 words on a topic of their choice within this theme for consideration for publication in JIPLP. The issue will focus on the national approaches to the interpretation and transpositions of the Directive's provisions. Both actual transposition measures and draft provisions can be the topic of articles. No articles focusing exclusively on the text of the Directive may be considered for this issue.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Relevant articles must be submitted through the <a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/6631405922607116203/5627957928662846389#"><b>online portal</b></a>, be in accordance with <a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/6631405922607116203/5627957928662846389#"><b>JIPLP house style</b></a>, and carry the indication that they are for consideration for the special issue on the DSM Directive's national transpositions.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The deadline for submissions is <b><u>Friday, 18 March 2022</u></b>. No late submissions will be considered for this special issue.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">For authors interested in discussing informally the topic of a possible contribution, please email the Editor of this special issue, <b><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/eleonorarosati/?originalSubdomain=uk">Eleonora Rosati</a></b>, and/or Managing Editor <b><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-harris-babb4a1/">Sarah Harris</a></b>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The special issue will be available in complimentary open access for a limited period of time after publication. The Editor is also considering the possible organization of an online conference/meeting with the authors of the special issue after the special issue has been published.</div>Eleonora Rosatihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05629420303968805446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6631405922607116203.post-7902592478698752092021-11-20T18:39:00.003+00:002021-11-20T18:39:38.438+00:00The Authors' Take - Are copyright-permitted uses “exceptions”, “limitations” or “user rights”? The special case of Article 17 CDSM Directive<h2 style="text-align: center;">Are copyright-permitted uses “exceptions”, “limitations” or “user rights”? The special case of Article 17 CDSM Directive</h2><h4 style="text-align: center;"><i><br /></i></h4><h4 style="text-align: center;"><i>by <a href="https://www.clsbe.lisboa.ucp.pt/person/tito-rendas">Tito Rendas</a></i></h4><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In law, terminology matters a great deal. In the specific case of copyright, it matters because the words we use to refer to permitted uses of protected works – uses like private copying, quotation or parody – may have important practical consequences. With this forthcoming article, I hope to clarify the legal nature of permitted uses in copyright law. For that purpose, I shall tackle two sources of terminological disagreement.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The first relates to the nature of the rules that lay down permitted uses, specifically whether they should be considered “exceptions” or “limitations”. According to conventional wisdom, this terminological choice may affect the way we interpret these provisions: it is said that “exceptions” must be interpreted in a strict manner, whereas “limitations” tolerate broad readings. After concluding that the rules setting forth permitted uses are better described as “exceptions”, I make clear that this qualification should not be taken as carrying a preference for their narrow interpretation or as admitting their hierarchically inferior status in relation to exclusive rights. Despite being exceptions, nothing prevents these rules from being construed extensively.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I then move on to examining the nature of the entitlements conferred by copyright exceptions. I submit that, in general, these entitlements are not rights properly-so-called, since they are not paired with a correlative duty. Instead, we should refer to them as “privileges” or “freedoms”.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In some cases, however, the prerogatives enjoyed by users may be appropriately qualified as “rights”. I argue that the safeguards contained in Article 17 CDSM Directive create one such case. Whereas Article 17(7) puts online content-sharing service providers under a duty not to prevent uses that are covered by exceptions, Article 17(9) gives the beneficiaries of exceptions access to truly offensive means of reaction, instead of mere means of defense. Read together, these safeguards confer actual rights upon users.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>[This is an Authors' Take post, which provides readers with an insight into current IP scholarship, featuring preliminary comments and thoughts from authors of articles accepted for publication in forthcoming issues of the Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice (OUP). The full text of this contribution will be made available on <a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/6631405922607116203/6671955243229340652#"><b>Advance Access</b></a> soon]</i></div>Eleonora Rosatihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05629420303968805446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6631405922607116203.post-66719552432293406522021-09-30T15:48:00.001+01:002021-11-20T18:36:52.600+00:00The Authors' Take - Fighting the tech giants – news edition: Competition law’s (un)suitability to safeguard the press publishers’ right and the quest for a regulatory approach<h2 style="text-align: justify;">Fighting the tech giants – news edition: Competition law’s (un)suitability to safeguard the press publishers’ right and the quest for a regulatory approach</h2><h3 style="text-align: center;"><i>by <a href="https://researchportal.helsinki.fi/en/persons/tone-knapstad"><b>Tone Knapstad</b></a></i></h3><div style="text-align: justify;">As part of the ongoing debate on value-sharing for creators and users of online content, press publishers were granted a neighbouring right under EU copyright. This entailed an opportunity to obtain remuneration through licences for the use of online journalistic content by online aggregation services.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">However, the right’s lack of efficiency became visible when press publishers in France, the first country to implement the right, attempted to enforce remuneration for Google’s use of snippets. Google demanded zero-remuneration licences or would abstain from using snippets from news webpages, which has proven to lead to decline in webpage traffic. Accordingly, the press publishers were still not seeing the promised remuneration. Since the strong market position of Google appeared to enable the ultimatum, the publishers claimed the behaviour infringed competition law, constituting an abuse of dominance.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This article argues that EU competition law cannot be relied on to ensure remuneration under the press publishers’ right. This argument is, firstly, based on an analysis concluding that practices similar to that of Google – forcing zero remuneration licences - do not constitute an abuse of dominance under Article 102 of the Treaty of the Functioning of the European Union. Secondly, the argument is founded on the conclusion that competition law, de lege ferenda, should not be applied for such purposes, as the goal of competition law does not warrant securing remuneration. Moreover, it is suggested that the fairness standard, which some argue is becoming a benchmark in EU competition law, is not a steering principle in itself, but rather that fairness is the result of correct competition law enforcement.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Lastly, the article maps the alternative regulatory approaches initiated in the EU (Digital Markets Act), Australia (Mandatory Bargaining Code) and the US. This is done to assess whether these solve the problem of press publisher remuneration and to explore the implications of regulation for competition law.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>[This is an Authors' Take post, which provides readers with an insight into current IP scholarship, featuring preliminary comments and thoughts from authors of articles accepted for publication in forthcoming issues of the Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice (OUP). The full text of this contribution will be made available on <a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/6631405922607116203/5060176479396779385#"><b>Advance Access</b></a> soon]</i></div>Eleonora Rosatihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05629420303968805446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6631405922607116203.post-79619832749922735642021-08-23T10:20:00.002+01:002021-09-30T15:45:15.645+01:00The Authors' Take - The purpose of copyright<h2 style="text-align: center;">The purpose of copyright </h2><div><h3 style="text-align: center;"><i>by <a href="https://www.plymouth.ac.uk/staff/simone-schroff">Simone Schroff</a></i></h3><div style="text-align: justify;">Digital technology has redefined how copyright works are created, distributed and consumed, changing the expectations of creators, commercial intermediaries and users alike. In this environment, clarity about what copyright aims to achieve is crucial to strike a viable bargain between the different groups.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The purpose of copyright has come under intense and sustained scrutiny over the last two decades. Copyright law is traditionally seen as a tool to protect the author, reward creators and investors and ensure societal benefit. While the debates about the right balance are wide-ranging and sometimes highly contentious, any consensus has proven elusive. Stakeholder dissatisfaction and claims of policy failure are increasingly common.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This article argues that the stagnating debates show that the traditional copyright theories do not provide sufficient guidance. Instead, reforms need to be reassessed based on what policy makers actually try to achieve. Using conventional discourse analysis on empirical EU policy evidence, the cross- institutional minimum consensus on what copyright aims to achieve is explored.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The results show how EU copyright policy differs from the theoretical and member state level debates. In particular, all aspects of EU copyright are shaped by the Single European Market: technological change brings economic benefits and copyright is a tool to harness them. As a result, copyright is considered a property right and all interference with it needs be kept to a minimum while competition law provides the safety net. The findings also show that while the narrative of harm to creators mobilises public opinion, reform proposals are more likely to succeed if they treat technological innovation as an economic opportunity rather than a threat.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>[This is an Authors' Take post, which provides readers with an insight into current IP scholarship, featuring preliminary comments and thoughts from authors of articles accepted for publication in forthcoming issues of the Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice (OUP). The full text of this contribution will be made available on <a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/6631405922607116203/1545251762052837963#"><b>Advance Access</b></a> soon]</i></div> </div>Eleonora Rosatihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05629420303968805446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6631405922607116203.post-50601764793967793852021-04-23T08:43:00.000+01:002021-04-23T08:43:52.937+01:00The Authors' Take - For a clarification of the concept of similarity - Critical review of European case-law regarding infringement of a mark with reputation<h2 style="text-align: center;">For a clarification of the concept of similarity - Critical review of European case-law regarding infringement of a mark with reputation</h2><h3 style="text-align: center;"><i><br /></i></h3><h3 style="text-align: center;"><i>by <a href="https://www.cabinet-arenaire.com/en/our-team/louis-louembe/">Louis Louembé</a>, <a href="https://www.cabinet-arenaire.com/en/our-team/pierre-massot/">Pierre Massot</a>, and <a href="https://www.cabinet-arenaire.com/en/our-team/mythili-thaya/">Mythili Thaya</a></i></h3><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">What is similarity between signs? If no one asks us, we know what it is. If we wish to explain, to him who asks when elements of resemblances are sufficient for a sign to be considered similar to a trade mark with reputation, we find it far more difficult! This is the paradox of trade mark lawyers put in the words of Saint Augustine (surely for a more philosophical question). Although more practical, the question of the similarity of signs is of the utmost importance to defend efficiently trade marks with reputation against free-riding.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Indeed, when a trade mark is well-known, it is sufficient for the sign in dispute to repeat a characteristic element of the trade mark with reputation, however minor it may seem, to trigger a mental association with it, as demonstrated in the famous "Master" case (<b><a href="https://curia.europa.eu/juris/liste.jsf?num=T-480/12&language=EN">judgment of 11 December 2014, Coca-Cola, T-480/12</a></b>). It is therefore important to have a method of assessing similarity between signs sufficiently thorough to take into account apparently minor elements but which can be sufficient to create a likelihood of association because of all relevant factors (such as of the reputation of the trade mark, the identity of the products and services offered, etc.).</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Our article aims at demonstrating that European case-law is not satisfying in this regard. Indeed, the CJUE has initially modelled the method of assessing similarity in the case of infringement of a trade mark with reputation on the method designed to search for a likelihood of confusion. As a consequence, it excludes any consideration of reputation at the stage of assessing similarity and encourages consideration of the overall impression produced by the signs. Although the CJEU has attempted to make certain adjustments, the method of assessing similarity in relation to trade marks with reputation remains unsatisfactory and a source of uncertainty in the case law. It is also inconsistent with the case law on protected designations of origin, even though the logic governing these two systems is similar. We conclude that the method of assessing similarity in the case of infringement of a trade mark with reputation should be reviewed and defined with regard to its own purpose, i.e. identifying elements of resemblances sufficient to create a mental link between signs, and not a likelihood of confusion.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><p class="gmail-MsoPlainText" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB"><i style="font-family: Times; font-size: medium;">[This is an Authors' Take post, which provides readers with an insight into current IP scholarship, featuring preliminary comments and thoughts from authors of articles accepted for publication in forthcoming issues of the Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice (OUP). The full text of this contribution will be made available on <a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/6631405922607116203/1545251762052837963#"><b>Advance Access</b></a> soon]</i></span></p>Eleonora Rosatihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05629420303968805446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6631405922607116203.post-33325536541225736372021-04-22T17:53:00.003+01:002021-04-22T17:53:51.019+01:00The Authors' Take - Comment on Andy Warhol Found. for the Visual Arts, Inc. v. Goldsmith, 2021 U.S. App. LEXIS 8806 (2d Cir. March 26, 2021)<h2 style="text-align: justify;"></h2><h2 style="text-align: center;">Comment on <i>Andy Warhol Found. for the Visual Arts, Inc. v. Goldsmith, 2021 U.S. App. LEXIS 8806</i> (2d Cir. March 26, 2021)</h2><h3 style="text-align: center;">U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals tames “transformative” fair use; rejects “celebrity-plagiarist privilege”; clarifies protectable expression in photographs</h3><h4 style="text-align: center;"><b><i><br /></i></b></h4><h3 style="text-align: center;"><b><i>by <a href="https://www.law.columbia.edu/faculty/jane-c-ginsburg">Jane C. Ginsburg</a></i></b></h3><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In <a href="https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca2/19-2420/19-2420-2021-03-26.html"><b><i>Andy Warhol Found. for the Visual Arts, Inc. v. Goldsmith</i>, 2021 U.S. App. LEXIS 8806 (March 26, 2021)</b></a>, the Second Circuit reversed the SDNY’s grant of summary judgment that Andy Warhol’s silk screen adaptation of a photographic portrait of entertainer Prince was a fair use. The Second Circuit’s decision retreats both from its prior caselaw’s generous characterization of artistic reuse as “transformative,” and from the outcome-determinacy of a finding of “transformativeness.” The court also provided an important explanation of copyrightable authorship in photographs.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fdWdMLohw8A/YIGpYn8aOxI/AAAAAAAAOPE/2Bue2n3fGGIJ5D2PzJeM2tWHN7UR7Jl1gCLcBGAsYHQ/s861/Screenshot%2B2021-04-22%2Bat%2B17.47.00.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="517" data-original-width="861" height="384" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fdWdMLohw8A/YIGpYn8aOxI/AAAAAAAAOPE/2Bue2n3fGGIJ5D2PzJeM2tWHN7UR7Jl1gCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h384/Screenshot%2B2021-04-22%2Bat%2B17.47.00.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lynn Goldsmith's photograph (L);<br />Andy Warhol's <i>Prince</i> (R) </td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Like other recent decisions, this judgment may signal a taming of “transformative use.” Prior caselaw, particularly in the district courts, seemed to accept almost any alleged new meaning or purpose, or added expression, as “transformative,” and then, having racked the first fair use factor into the defendant’s column, lined up the other three to conform to the first. Appellate courts now may be curbing this enthusiasm, both by adopting a more critical assessment of alleged transformations, and by reviving the independent importance of the fourth factor, market harm. In emphasizing the impact of the defendant’s use on the plaintiff’s ability to license derivative works, the Second Circuit may have begun to redress <a href="https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca2/11-1197/11-1197-2013-04-25.html"><b><i>Cariou</i></b></a>’s derogatory treatment of the art world proletariat. The court recognized that depriving photographers of licensing markets, including markets for using their works as “raw material” for other artists to stylize, disserves the overall goal of copyright to promote creativity by enabling artists to make a living.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Furthermore, the court’s exposition of protectable expression in photographs should reassure photographers, particularly photojournalists, whose art consists largely of knowing how and when to seize the moment. Against the contention that such images merely convey a reality the photographer did not create, the court’s emphasis on “the image produced in the interval between the shutter opening and closing,” (at *37) recognizes that “the readiness is all.” (Shakespeare, <i>Hamlet</i> V.2).</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>[This is an Authors' Take post, which provides readers with an insight into current IP scholarship, featuring preliminary comments and thoughts from authors of articles accepted for publication in forthcoming issues of the Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice (OUP). The full text of this contribution will be made available on <a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/6631405922607116203/1545251762052837963#"><b>Advance Access</b></a> soon]</i></div>Eleonora Rosatihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05629420303968805446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6631405922607116203.post-15452517620528379632021-04-22T08:56:00.000+01:002021-04-22T08:56:03.575+01:00The Authors' Take - Preclusion Due To Tolerance: Conditions For Applying The Acquiescence Rule In Trade Mark Law<h2 style="text-align: center;">Preclusion Due To Tolerance: Conditions For Applying The Acquiescence Rule In Trade Mark Law</h2><h3 style="text-align: center;"><i>by Michal Bohaczewski</i></h3><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The article analyses a rule of the EU trade mark law referred to by the legislature as ‘acquiescence’. The provisions on acquiescence provide for a period of preclusion for filing an invalidation or infringement action against a later registered trade mark which has been used on the market, provided that the proprietor of the earlier right tolerated that use for 5 successive years. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The study first examines the prerequisites for the commencement of the period of preclusion resulting from the jurisprudence of the Court of Justice of the EU. In particular, the author refers to the requirement of knowledge by the proprietor of the earlier trade mark of the use of the later mark which, in some cases, in the absence of evidence of direct knowledge, may be deduced from the circumstances of the case. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The article further analyses the conditions which need to be fulfilled for the period of preclusion to expire. The author raises the issue of the form in which the proprietor of the earlier right should oppose the use of the later trade mark in order to exclude his acquiescence. This matter of major practical importance is currently subject to a question referred to the Court of Justice for a preliminary ruling (<b><a href="https://curia.europa.eu/juris/liste.jsf?num=C-466/20&language=en">C-466/20</a></b>). </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The study also examines the relationship between the preclusion due to acquiescence and the ‘peaceful coexistence’ of the trade marks as a factor to be taken into account in the assessment of the likelihood of confusion between the signs, since prima facie the scopes of application of both rules may seem to overlap. The author concludes however that in reality there is little room for an overlapping between them.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>[This is an Authors' Take post, which provides readers with an insight into current IP scholarship, featuring preliminary comments and thoughts from authors of articles accepted for publication in forthcoming issues of the Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice (OUP). The full text of this contribution will be made available on <b><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/6631405922607116203/2241256724459810875#">Advance Access</a> </b>soon]</i></div>Eleonora Rosatihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05629420303968805446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6631405922607116203.post-22412567244598108752021-04-06T04:16:00.003+01:002021-04-06T04:19:23.901+01:00The Authors' Take - Trademarking “COVID” and “Coronavirus” in the United States: An Empirical Review<h2 style="text-align: center;">Trademarking “COVID” and “Coronavirus” in the United States:</h2><h2 style="text-align: center;">An Empirical Review</h2><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><h4 style="text-align: center;"><i>by <b><a href="https://law.tamu.edu/faculty-staff/find-people/faculty-profiles/irene-calboli">Irene Calboli</a></b></i></h4><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Since its global debut in early 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has led to a tsunami of trademark applications including the terms “COVID,” “Coronavirus,” and other medical and pandemic-management related terms. In this Article, I examine the applications that have been filed with the United States Patent and Trademark Office until the end of 2020. In particular, I present a comprehensive set of data regarding the products for which the applications have been filed, the type of filing entities, the legal basis for filing, and the date of filing throughout the relevant period. Based on these data, the COVID-19 pandemic led not only to a large number of filings for medical and pandemic-related products, but also for unrelated and promotional products. Individuals and small businesses were the largest groups of filers, and over two thirds of the applications were based on intent-to-use rather than use in commerce. The number of filings closely mirrored the development of the pandemic during the various months of 2020. In addition, when compared with previous filings for signs including terms related to past sensational events, including pandemics, the numbers of “COVID-19 related” applications were much higher than any previous filings. This confirms the catalyst effect of the COVID-19 pandemic also on the trademark application system, even though a large number of these applications may ultimately not be registered as several signs may be found to be generic or descriptive—in particular for medical and pandemic-related products—or deemed not to function as trademarks—for example if they are used as ornamentations on promotional products. The signs may also be found to be deceptive if they imply a specific cure or solution, when this may not be accurate. Still, the data presented highlight several interesting aspects of the phenomenon of “filing sensationalism,” even though it remains difficult to understand what triggered this large number of filings precisely with respect to the COVID-19 pandemic--a time that we all hope to put behind in the nearest future.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>[This is an Authors' Take post, which provides readers with an insight into current IP scholarship, featuring preliminary comments and thoughts from authors of articles accepted for publication in forthcoming issues of the Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice (OUP). The full text of this contribution will be made available on <a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/6631405922607116203/1560475845272856569#"><b>Advance Access</b></a> soon]</i></div>Eleonora Rosatihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05629420303968805446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6631405922607116203.post-47781598373669216762021-03-22T11:04:00.000+00:002021-03-22T11:04:34.377+00:00In conversation with ... Prof. Dr. Annette Kur<p><span face="Calibri, sans-serif"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-AC0doP_Hlt4/YFh3pgvJctI/AAAAAAAAACQ/YV6WrzF_07UIB9bg-S5Rts39l2W3yauYgCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/Kur%2B08.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1401" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-AC0doP_Hlt4/YFh3pgvJctI/AAAAAAAAACQ/YV6WrzF_07UIB9bg-S5Rts39l2W3yauYgCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/Kur%2B08.jpg" /></a><span face="Calibri, sans-serif"></span></div><span face="Calibri, sans-serif"><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;">The editors of the</span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif"> </span><i>Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice</i><span face="Calibri, sans-serif"> </span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif">(</span><i>JIPLP</i><span face="Calibri, sans-serif">) were very honoured when Prof. Dr. Annette Kur accepted their invitation to join the journal’s editorial board a couple of years ago. I too was delighted when Annette agreed to talk to me recently for the second in a new series of conversations with leading figures in the IP community…</span></span><div><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The effects of chance or coincidence – perhaps serendipity? – were a recurrent theme of our conversation, a retrospective survey of Annette’s distinguished career. With characteristic modesty, Annette described how she first developed an interest in the Nordic countries, leading the Nordic Department at the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition in Munich. Annette first arrived at the Institute, drawn initially by the favourable conditions in which to write her PhD, not with a background in IP, but from a competition and consumer protection perspective. This desire to protect consumers and the socially weaker has persisted ever since. It was Annette’s (rudimentary to begin with) knowledge of the Swedish language that was instrumental in establishing her at the Institute – the first defining moment of her illustrious career. Annette proceeded to master (passively) not only Swedish, but also Norwegian and Danish, and spent significant amounts of time translating, which was a key task in the country departments at the Institute. The Nordic community became and remains precious to Annette’s heart.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><o:p><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Annette referred to the Institute as a microcosm of the wider IP community, which also holds a special place for her. It is unique. A small community in the early days, the Institute became a hub for IP internationally and is still a family. Annette described the appeal of IP intellectually: copyright and its affinity with the arts, and patents, though very different, still connected with ideas. Annette loves the playfulness and flexibility of the IP system. Its rules may be rigid, but at their core is a genuine dynamism as nothing is cast in stone. As Annette put it, “everything moves”. It struck me that Annette, as a true comparativist, enjoys the intellectual stimulation provided by contrasts; she compared the German system, with its rigidity and hierarchy, with the Nordic academic landscape and its non-hierarchical style of communication. Within the Max Planck Institute, as people come together from so many different countries, it is impossible to impose a strict hierarchy or a strict dogma. According to Annette, this accentuated the openness and playfulness at the Institute, especially in the Nordic Department. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><o:p><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Known as a guiding light in design law, having been instrumental in the creation of the system of Community designs, Annette shared with me how further serendipity influenced the next phase of her career. Having previously focused on unfair competition and trade mark law from the consumer’s point of view, Annette was invited by the then director at the Institute to participate in a new interesting research project. This was subsequently adopted by the Commission as a blueprint and European design law was established. With typical self-deprecation, Annette attributes her then being viewed as a “design person” to several more amazing coincidences, and even confusion between the Hague Conference on Private International Law and Hague – the International Design System!<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><o:p><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">As Annette said, “Coincidences play a role in influencing one’s life and one’s academic output”.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><o:p><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In a final strange coincidence, I was lucky enough to take delivery of the recent <i><a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/transition-and-coherence-in-intellectual-property-law/ED5D2D6D4B0ADB7DF2F97DA26AAE1EF7">festschrift</a> </i>published in honour of Annette by Cambridge University Press. This arrived by chance about an hour before we had arranged to speak and provided me with the opportunity to read more about Annette’s history and to note some of the distinguished names whose chapters have been included in the book, a further sign of the high esteem in which Annette is held. Prof. Eleonora Rosati will shortly be reviewing the book, and readers can look forward to reading her review in a forthcoming issue of <i>JIPLP.</i></span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p></div>Sarah Harrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07949943385012911705noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6631405922607116203.post-15604758452728565692021-03-10T18:05:00.004+00:002021-03-10T18:05:53.324+00:00The Authors' Take - Governing the fashion industry (through) Intellectual Property assets: systematic assessment of individual trade marks embedding sustainable claims<h2 style="text-align: center;">Governing the fashion industry (through) Intellectual Property assets: systematic assessment of individual trade marks embedding sustainable claims</h2><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><h4 style="text-align: center;"><i>by <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#"><b>Sara Cavagnero</b></a></i></h4><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">As public interest in sustainable fashion rapidly surges, trade marks are playing a prominent role in promoting eco-friendly products and engendering consumer trust. PRADA registered the trade mark “Re-Nylon” to signal its collection based on the regenerated-nylon yarn ECONYL, while the fast-fashion giant H&M relied on the trade mark “CONSCIOUS” to identify products made with recycled or organic materials.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">These IP assets allow companies to transfer information on the so-called credence attributes, which empower consumers to select products reflecting not only their instrumental preferences but also their values. However, a missing piece of the puzzle relates to the correlation with sustainability commitments, given that the information provided is not neutral but framed by the brand and, thus, potentially contested.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The risks are clearly outlined in the <b><a href="https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_21_269">report</a></b> released in January 2021 by the European Commission, which revealed that 42% of green claims made by garments, cosmetics, and household companies on their websites are “exaggerated, false or deceptive”, and in 59% of cases not supported by any evidence.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The systematic assessment of 12.335 trade marks including 22 sustainability-related vocabularies filed in the United States, the European Union, and at the international level from 2000 to 2020, revealed that sustainability-related trade marks represent a modest portion of the overall number of registrations in classes 23, 24, and 25, but the growth figures are rising, in line with the general filing trends.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The untouched primacy of the term “green” suggests that corporate strategies are mainly based on green marketing principles, signalling, since the late 1980s, the positive correlation between eco-friendly shade or wording in visual branding and consumers’ judgment about companies’ actions.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Furthermore, by confirming that sustainable trade marks are largely decoupled from sustainable corporate practices, the research results validate the idea of expanding the existing taxonomy of greenwashing sins, by identifying a new form of disingenuous communications, conveyed via individual trade marks.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Still, this proposal is not flawless. Indeed, the IP regulatory framework is ill-adapted to monitor sustainability claims conveyed through individual trade marks and the misleading advertising regulation does not appear to be unfolding its full potential.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Potentially, instead, a more regulated approach, inspired by the food sector, may help to curb disingenuous corporate practices conveyed via trade marks.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>[This is an Authors' Take post, which provides readers with an insight into current IP scholarship, featuring preliminary comments and thoughts from authors of articles accepted for publication in forthcoming issues of the </i>Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice<i> (OUP). The full text of this contribution will be made available on <a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/6631405922607116203/7230746323201341091#"><b>Advance Access</b></a> soon]</i></div>Eleonora Rosatihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05629420303968805446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6631405922607116203.post-72307463232013410912021-03-05T12:27:00.004+00:002021-03-05T12:27:53.070+00:00The Authors' Take - A critical review of intellectual property rights in the Kenyan tea sector<h2 style="text-align: center;">A critical review of intellectual property rights in the Kenyan tea sector</h2><div style="text-align: center;"><i>by <b><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/isaac-rutenberg-96a77a14/">Isaac Rutenberg</a></b></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Agriculture remains the most important economic sector in much of Sub-Saharan Africa, providing <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.AGR.EMPL.ZS?locations=ZG"><b>over 50% of overall employment</b></a>, so the acquisition and use of intellectual property rights (IPRs) in the sector can have wide-reaching effects. In Kenya, tea (primarily in the form of bulk, dried leaves) is the largest export product by value, and is a major source of income for hundreds of thousands of smallholder farmers. In addition to the economic benefit, tea (unlike coffee) is widely consumed in Kenya, and has significant cultural importance.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">With relatively active patent, trade mark, and copyright offices, a functional plant variety protection (PVP) regime, and membership in the Africa Regional Intellectual Property Organization (ARIPO), Kenya is home to numerous tea-related IPRs held by both foreign and local entities in government and the private sector. The Kenyan tea sector is therefore targeted in this paper as a case study for exploring various aspects of the sectoral use of IPRs.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Throughout the 20th century, foreign (i.e., non-Kenyan) entities were responsible for a majority of the activity in tea-related IPRs protecting innovation (i.e., patents and PVPs). This appears to be shifting in recent years toward more ownership and participation by local entities. Furthermore, the focus of innovation is more diverse for local applicants. Whereas foreign entities largely seek to protect tea plants and methods of processing tea plants, IPR applications from local entities cover a wider spectrum of the value chain for tea and tea-related products.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In contrast, trade marks have always been predominantly used by local entities. Tea-related trade marks include some that use the names of geographic locations. Kenya does not have a Geographic Indication (GI) system, but both economic and agricultural factors point to a situation that might be ideal for GIs.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A surprising finding is the almost complete lack of any tea-related IPRs held by non-Kenyan, Africa-based entities. Although seven of the <b><a href="https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-worlds-top-10-tea-producing-nations.html">top 20 global tea producing nations</a> </b>are in Africa (including all five of the countries in the East African Community), this study found just a few trade marks held by entities in Egypt, Mauritius, and Uganda. Africa-based entities do not hold any tea-related patents, PVP certificates, or national plant variety registrations in Kenya. Such findings may be important for the ongoing negotiations for the African Continental Free Trade Agreement.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>[This is an Authors' Take post, which provides readers with an insight into current IP scholarship, featuring preliminary comments and thoughts from authors of articles accepted for publication in forthcoming issues of the Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice (OUP). The full text of this contribution will be made available on <b><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/6631405922607116203/4052794649017796185#" style="color: #007cbb; text-decoration-line: none;">Advance Access</a> </b>soon]</i></div>Eleonora Rosatihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05629420303968805446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6631405922607116203.post-19347891537608334522021-02-26T15:08:00.002+00:002021-02-26T15:10:19.294+00:00The Authors' Take - Final decision from a UK Community Design Court clarifies how to interpret a registered design<h2 style="text-align: center;">Final decision from a UK Community Design Court clarifies how to interpret a registered design</h2><div style="text-align: center;"><i>by <b><a href="https://www.eip.com/de/people/darren-smyth">Darren Smyth</a></b></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The decision in <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#"><b><i>Rothy's Inc v Giesswein Walkwaren AG</i> [2020] EWHC 3391 (IPEC) (16 December 2020)</b></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/#"> </a>relates to a design for ballerina shoes, which an informal, women's slip-on shoe, with a relatively thin, flexible sole and a wide, low heel. This decision is the last judgment handed down by a UK court acting as a Community Design Court. David Stone, sitting as a Deputy High Court Judge in the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court, was faced with the task of construing what was protected as the Registered Community Design.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5qDwHdnhpUc/YDkOanjbRSI/AAAAAAAAOHQ/vQHdqBZCGVEXeGScvtN2sbwKXcpFXQp7gCLcBGAsYHQ/s698/Screenshot%2B2021-02-26%2Bat%2B16.05.57.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="402" data-original-width="698" height="368" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5qDwHdnhpUc/YDkOanjbRSI/AAAAAAAAOHQ/vQHdqBZCGVEXeGScvtN2sbwKXcpFXQp7gCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h368/Screenshot%2B2021-02-26%2Bat%2B16.05.57.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">The key feature of the shoe which the Claimant developed was that the upper was made of knitted yarn made from recycled plastic. However, the Defendant denied that the cross-hatching in the images of the designs indicated a knitted meshwork fabric.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In determining what constitutes the claimed design, the judge rejected the submission of the Claimant that he should take into account a shoe made to the design. This would clearly risk introducing features extraneous to those claimed in the registration. As the judge pointed out, whilst superficially attractive, this argument is circular – to determine if the proffered shoe is indeed a shoe made to the design, one first needs to assess what the registration means.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The judge also rejected the submission of the Claimant that he should consider the description of the claimed design in the US design patent application from which priority was claimed. It cannot be correct to import subject matter from a priority application in this manner, in particular when the effect would be to circumvent Article 36(6) of the Community Design Regulation which stipulates that the description of a RCD does not affect the scope of protection.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This leaves only the images of the registered design to define what is claimed in the registration. The judge scrutinised closeups of the images on the EU IPO website, and concluded that the patterning shown on the upper depicts a knitted fabric. This led to the conclusion that the RCD possessed individual character, as neither of the pleaded prior designs had knitted uppers (both were suede).</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The differences between the Defendant’s shoe and what the judge construed as being protected by the RCD (such as a tab at the back of the shoe and a decorative button) were held to be minor, so the Defendant’s shoe was held to infringe the RCD.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>[This is an Authors' Take post, which provides readers with an insight into current IP scholarship, featuring preliminary comments and thoughts from authors of articles accepted for publication in forthcoming issues of the Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice (OUP). The full text of this contribution will be made available on <b><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/6631405922607116203/4052794649017796185#" style="color: #007cbb; text-decoration-line: none;">Advance Access</a> </b>soon]</i></div>Eleonora Rosatihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05629420303968805446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6631405922607116203.post-36448487695059993672021-02-26T14:29:00.002+00:002021-02-26T15:10:31.483+00:00The Authors' Take - The Commission’s vision for Europe’s Digital Future: Proposals for the Data Governance Act, the Digital Markets Act and the Digital Services Act – A critical primer<h2 style="text-align: center;">The Commission’s vision for Europe’s Digital Future: Proposals for the Data Governance Act, the Digital Markets Act and the Digital Services Act – A critical primer</h2><div style="text-align: center;"><i>by <b><a href="https://www.en.jura.uni-muenchen.de/staff/professoren/leistner_matthias/index.html">Matthias Leistner</a></b></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In November and December 2020, the EU Commission has presented a triad of proposals concerning data governance, the regulation of gatekeepers in digital markets and the regulation of digital services (namely including an ambitious, yet considerate, reform of provider liability in Europe as well as the introduction of certain duties of diligence in particular for very large platforms). Specifically, this Digital Services Package respectively comprises a proposed <a href="https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:52020PC0767"><b>Data Governance Act</b></a> (DGA), <b><a href="https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/en/TXT/?uri=COM:2020:842:FIN">Digital Markets Act</a> </b>(DMA) and <a href="https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/en/TXT/?uri=COM:2020:825:FIN"><b>Digital Services Act</b></a> (DSA). Altogether, these bills represent the hitherto most ambitious and broad regulatory project in the field of data and digital services regulation worldwide.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div> <div style="text-align: justify;">While the (rather heterogeneous) DGA as well as the DSA will also have to be critically discussed in detail (and partly are in the paper), immediate attention has to be paid to the fundamentals of the DMA Proposal, namely, the necessary discussion of its legal basis, objective and context. To put it in a nutshell, the Proposal represents a hybrid approach to specific regulation of gatekeeper platforms, which comprises prominent elements of competition law as well as certain elements of unfair practices regulation and some other objectives (such as the efficient enforcement of certain rights relating to protection of personal data). Taken together, most of this makes perfect sense as a European Magna Carta for businesses’ and customers’ competitive freedoms vis-à-vis core platform intermediary and infrastructural services. Practically, in its current form, the proposal would effectively apply to the GAFAM-companies and a handful of further gatekeeper platforms.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">However, notwithstanding the substantive competition law elements within this regulatory approach, the Proposal is only based on Art. 114 TFEU as an instrument of internal market harmonization. Against this background, presently, the main fundamental weakness of the Proposal concerns the integration in the context of or at least a more specific co-ordination with European and national competition law. This has practical consequences since sufficiently consistent and specific provisions on coordinating public enforcement of the Commission on the one hand and of the Member States’ authorities (in particular on the additional basis of competition law) on the other are lacking in the Proposal. In fact, this latter more practical aspect is partly linked to the former more fundamental aspect, since contextual integration in the realm of competition law (and consequently the use of Art. 103 TFEU as an additional basis for the Proposal) would allow to make use of the European Competition Network under <a href="https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/en/ALL/?uri=CELEX:32003R0001"><b>Regulation 1/2003</b></a> for the public enforcement of the DMA Proposal’s provisions in order to efficiently coordinate EU and national enforcement, based on both, the DMA Proposal and EU or national competition law. Apart from that, a European legal framework for private remedies and enforcement in regard to the obligations laid down in the Proposal seems of paramount importance, since otherwise there is a considerable danger of disharmonization and inefficiency in regard to diverse or lacking private remedies according to the different Member States’ respective national contract, tort and unfair competition laws.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Make no mistake: The Magna Carta in many ways was a document of the weakness of King John of England in enforcement of his power against the rebel barons. Issues of public and private enforcement will also be the crucial tie-breakers for making the DMA Proposal a future success in practice – thus they should be addressed comprehensively from the start.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>[This is an Authors' Take post, which provides readers with an insight into current IP scholarship, featuring preliminary comments and thoughts from authors of articles accepted for publication in forthcoming issues of the Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice (OUP). The full text of this contribution will be made available on <b><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/6631405922607116203/4052794649017796185#" style="color: #007cbb; text-decoration-line: none;">Advance Access</a> </b>soon]</i></div>Eleonora Rosatihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05629420303968805446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6631405922607116203.post-7868723127241516722020-11-16T17:44:00.000+00:002020-11-16T17:48:26.837+00:00Free content in honour of the INTA 2020 Annual Meeting<p><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">In honour of the INTA 2020 Annual Meeting, OUP has made available some specially-selected free content. This features several</span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><i style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">JIPLP</i><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">articles, along with chapters from key OUP books, including <i><b>Copyright and the Court of Justice of the European Union</b></i> by Eleonora Rosati and <b><i>Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights in Africa</i></b> by Marius Schneider and Vanessa Ferguson. The featured content will be free to read until 7 December 2020, so do take a look! See <a href="https://pages.oup.com/socsci/47445095/intellectual-property-law">here</a> for more information!</span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gRF8LfweLTg/X7K2tLnOe9I/AAAAAAAAAAc/Sek6CMP4y_YedEzG4G1dWrsYEV_igPCHACLcBGAsYHQ/s429/thumbnail_image006.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="183" data-original-width="429" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gRF8LfweLTg/X7K2tLnOe9I/AAAAAAAAAAc/Sek6CMP4y_YedEzG4G1dWrsYEV_igPCHACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/thumbnail_image006.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span><p></p>Sarah Harrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07949943385012911705noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6631405922607116203.post-40527946490177961852020-10-26T18:32:00.005+00:002021-02-26T15:10:50.758+00:00The Authors' Take - Meet My Artificially-Intelligent Virtual Self: Creative Avatars, Machine Learning, Smart Contracts and the Copyright Conundrum<h1 style="text-align: center;">Meet My Artificially-Intelligent Virtual Self: Creative Avatars, Machine
Learning, Smart Contracts and the Copyright Conundrum </h1><h2 style="text-align: center;"><i>by <a href="https://www.cityu.edu.hk/slw/people/people_eugene.html">Eugene C Lim</a></i> </h2><p style="text-align: justify;">Artificial intelligence (AI) technologies have triggered a dramatic paradigm shift in how we
conceive of authorship and creation. Intelligent machines, such as those powered by the new
GPT-3 neural network technology, are capable of generating human-like creative expressions,
composing text, performing translations and producing other creative outputs once thought to be
beyond the ability of computers. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">This article focuses on intelligent applications (or “creative
avatars”) that are programmed to replicate the style of a human author (such as Shakespeare,
Rembrandt or J.K. Rowling), and the regulatory challenges flowing from the generation of such
works. The challenges surrounding the production of such content relate not only to questions of
ownership and authorship, but extend to issues of how, if at all, these works can be treated as
copyrightable subject matter. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">While much of the literature in the field has proposed significant
modifications to traditional copyright rules to accommodate the emergence of AI-generated
content, this article highlights the limitations of relying on copyright law in regulating rights in
AI-generated derivative works. In developing this argument, the article adopts a novel approach
by suggesting that interim solutions, in the form of alternative business and technological
models, can be found outside of the “copyright box”. In particular, the article proposes a consent-based contract framework, featuring digital watermarks, Creative Commons licences and
blockchain technologies, as part of an interim solution to regulate rights in relation to works
generated by “creative avatar” programs. It is suggested that existing contractual and
technological tools, drawn from current practices in the software licensing and cryptocurrency
industries, can be useful to stakeholders in the AI industry, especially in the early years of
emerging neural network technologies. In this regard, the article offers a utilitarian justification
for the proposed consent-based framework by explaining how it can help to facilitate the
dissemination of AI-generated derivative works in the absence of clearly-defined copyright rules,
and promote the eventual enrichment of the public domain. </p><p style="text-align: justify;"><i>[This is an Authors' Take post, which provides readers with an insight into current IP scholarship, featuring preliminary comments and thoughts from authors of articles accepted for publication in forthcoming issues of the Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice (OUP). The full text of this contribution will be made available on <b><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/6631405922607116203/4052794649017796185#" style="color: #007cbb; text-decoration-line: none;">Advance Access</a> </b>soon]</i></p>Eleonora Rosatihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05629420303968805446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6631405922607116203.post-2227025241106435882020-10-20T17:32:00.000+01:002020-10-20T17:32:22.968+01:00In conversation with... Etienne Sanz De Acedo<p style="text-align: justify;"><b style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif">In conversation with…</span></b><b style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><b><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Etienne Sanz de Acedo, CEO of the International Trademark Association<o:p></o:p></span></b><span style="font-family: times;"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><span face="Arial, sans-serif"><br /><span><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-k2sgA6lJ2r8/X48PhpdH0YI/AAAAAAAAAAM/yJK6S-QEhn8UyZCrqPEXmLqM31gLJd22wCLcBGAsYHQ/s145/ETIENNE-145x145.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; font-family: times; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="145" data-original-width="145" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-k2sgA6lJ2r8/X48PhpdH0YI/AAAAAAAAAAM/yJK6S-QEhn8UyZCrqPEXmLqM31gLJd22wCLcBGAsYHQ/s0/ETIENNE-145x145.jpg" /></a><span style="font-family: arial;">In the first of a new series of conversations, I recently caught up with INTA’s CEO, Etienne Sanz de Acedo, to discuss plans for the upcoming virtual meeting and to hear Etienne’s thoughts on the current IP landscape and the Association’s key policy priorities. The background of the current pandemic was never far from our conversation, but Etienne, ever the optimist, was always keen to highlight </span></span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span>opportunity and appears to be facing the situation with calm resolve. </span><o:p></o:p></span><div><p></p><p style="margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Consumer trust and behaviour and how these have evolved since the start of the pandemic were a key theme of our conversation. According to Etienne, internet usage is expected to rocket by 160% among new or low frequency users alone, whereas consumers are becoming more frugal in their consumption with a shift in focus towards home and family. The online marketplace will inevitably continue to grow, but consumers will increasingly seek to engage with transparent, fair and ethical suppliers – a major consideration for brand owners and their advisors. It seems that the pandemic is either exacerbating or accelerating trends that were already apparent, including increased consumer fatigue around certain brands and trade marks. Consumers are benefitting from better access to information, which is aiding their desire to interact with brands whose ethos lends itself to a relationship of trust and transparency. It is no longer enough for brands to be seen to talk; they also need to act.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">We also discussed brand restrictions: advocating for the right of brand owners to use their trade marks and related IP rights where governments seek to prohibit, misappropriate or significantly restrict those rights. Tobacco plain packaging is the most obvious example, but this also now affects other products such as infant formula, and sugary snacks and beverages. There is unease that a desire to address public health concerns has led to unwanted side-effects, impinging on consumer choice, impeding market competition and, perhaps most worryingly, benefitting counterfeiting and other illegal trade. Such <span style="background-color: white;">restrictions inevitably erode brand value and arguably restrict freedom of expression. </span>Whilst proponents of such measures argue that their aims are beneficial in seeking to reduce exposure to and use of products and services conventionally deemed to be unhealthy, INTA maintains that legislation and regulation restricting branding and use of trade marks must be driven by clear and convincing evidence of efficacy. They support balanced regulation that addresses public health concerns whilst respecting private property rights.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">And finally, the burning topic of the Annual Meeting: education, advocacy and business development form INTA’s DNA and the meeting plays a key part. This year would have marked the twentieth anniversary of my first INTA Annual Meeting in Denver, Colorado, in 2000. Sadly, the meeting planned for April in Singapore was not to be and the 2020 Annual Meeting will be held virtually in November. For me, the elephant in the room was always the question of how to tackle diverse time zones but, as Etienne explained, INTA has addressed this with a three-pronged approach. Sessions are mainly timed to start early in the morning on the US East Coast, allowing for the largest number of attendees to participate at a comfortable time. There will also be live sessions in China standard time zone in Mandarin and English, plus on demand sessions and “Watch Parties”, allowing registrants to view recorded sessions with interaction via live chat. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">I look forward to catching up with many familiar faces over the virtual platform and thank Etienne for taking the time to share his thoughts with our readers ahead of the meeting. As has been customary in previous years, OUP will soon be launching a free INTA collection of content, including several key articles from JIPLP, so keep an eye out!<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;">Sarah Harris<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><b><span face="Arial, sans-serif"><span style="font-family: arial;">Managing Editor, <i>Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice</i></span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif"><o:p></o:p></span></span></b></p></div>Sarah Harrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07949943385012911705noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6631405922607116203.post-43640408853051609112020-10-07T14:49:00.000+01:002020-10-07T14:49:10.806+01:00Reminder: JIPLP Special Issue on GIs<p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hZqxJyq3fwo/X33GslM1paI/AAAAAAAANvs/lz4-on0AiK4KVk9o0WFKdn4CCSyhTrjBwCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/Screenshot%2B2020-07-02%2Bat%2B13.31.40.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="160" data-original-width="640" height="160" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hZqxJyq3fwo/X33GslM1paI/AAAAAAAANvs/lz4-on0AiK4KVk9o0WFKdn4CCSyhTrjBwCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h160/Screenshot%2B2020-07-02%2Bat%2B13.31.40.png" width="640" /></a></div><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;">A few months ago we </span><b style="text-align: left;"><a href="http://jiplp.blogspot.com/2020/07/announcing-jiplp-special-issue-on-gis.html">announced</a></b><span style="text-align: left;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.4px; text-align: left;">a Call for Articles for our forthcoming special issue on </span><b style="font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.4px; text-align: left;">Geographical </b><b style="font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.4px; text-align: left;">Indications (GIs)</b><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.4px; font-weight: bold; text-align: left;">, which will be published in 2021.</span></p><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.4px;">We would like to remind interested authors to submit articles in the range of 3,500-6,000 words on a topic of their choice within this theme for consideration for publication in JIPLP. The issue will focus on several aspects of GIs with specific emphasis on recent developments in Europe and at the international level. Submissions addressing the topic from a comparative perspective are also welcome.</span></p><div style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.4px; text-align: justify;">Relevant articles must be submitted through the <a href="https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/jiplap" style="color: #007cbb; text-decoration-line: none;"><b>online portal</b></a>, be in accordance with <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jiplp/pages/General_Instructions" style="color: #007cbb; text-decoration-line: none;"><b>JIPLP house style</b></a>, and carry the indication that they are for consideration for the special issue of Geographical Indications.</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.4px; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.4px; text-align: justify;">The deadline for submissions is <u><b>Monday, 30 November 2020</b></u>. No late submissions will be considered for this special issue.</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.4px; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.4px; text-align: justify;">For authors interested in discussing informally the topic of a possible contribution, please email the Editors of this special issue, <a href="mailto:eleonorarosati@gmail.com" style="color: #007cbb; text-decoration-line: none;"><b>Eleonora Rosati</b></a> and <b><a href="mailto:irene.calboli@gmail.com" style="color: #007cbb; text-decoration-line: none;">Irene Calboli</a></b>, and/or Managing Editor <b><a href="mailto:sarah.harris.contractor@oup.com" style="color: #007cbb; text-decoration-line: none;">Sarah Harris.</a></b> </div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.4px; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.4px; text-align: justify;">The special issue will be available in complimentary open access for a limited period of time after publication. The editors are also considering the possible organization of a conference/meeting with the authors of the special issue in 2021 after the special issue has been published.</div>Eleonora Rosatihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05629420303968805446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6631405922607116203.post-7871553705810481332020-10-05T19:59:00.006+01:002021-02-26T15:11:12.797+00:00The Authors' Take - Beauty and the Brand: Drafting contracts for the commercial use of someone's likeness<h1 style="text-align: center;"><b>Beauty and the Brand: Drafting contracts for the commercial use of someone's likeness</b></h1><h2 style="text-align: center;"><i>by <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/kelseyfarish/?originalSubdomain=uk">Kelsey Farish</a></i></h2><div style="text-align: justify;">Brands constantly seek to secure and promote their goodwill and reputation in the hearts and minds of the public. The use of individuals – either as models, spokespeople or other brand ambassadors – is often a key part of that process. But what control does the individual model (professional or otherwise) have over a photograph that depicts them? From a copyright perspective, unless the image is a selfie, the answer is usually, “not very much control at all”.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">At law, a photograph’s subject is typically not entitled to exploit the image in question without permission from the relevant copyright owner or its licensees. Even in jurisdictions with strong image (personality) rights regimes, the issue of controlling an image by virtue of being depicted in it is rarely straightforward. Such matters often turn on privacy, commercial context, and the unique circumstances of the person’s public profile.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In addition to the legal complexity, the expectations and practical concerns surrounding control over one’s own likeness seem to be shifting. This is due in part to a growing movement amongst content creators, influencers, and other public personas seeking fair recognition and remuneration over how their likeness is exploited. Furthermore, accusations of cultural appropriation and unfair exploitation of models, as well as airbrushing and manipulation more generally, remain hot-button issues in the world of media and advertising.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Thankfully, freedom of contract provides ample opportunity for a photograph’s subject to exert at least some control over how their image is used. That said, it can be difficult to know where to start when seeking to protect the interests of both the individual and the brand.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The author of the forthcoming Practice Point, entitled 'Beauty and the Brand: Drafting contracts for the commercial use of someone's likeness', hopes that this guidance will be useful for those drafting contracts marketing campaigns and influencer agreements, as well as high-profile celebrity endorsements.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px 0cm;"><i style="color: black; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; text-align: justify;">[This is an Authors' Take post, which provides readers with an insight into current IP scholarship, featuring preliminary comments and thoughts from authors of articles accepted for publication in forthcoming issues of the Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice (OUP). The full text of this contribution will be made available on <b><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/6631405922607116203/4052794649017796185#" style="color: #007cbb; text-decoration-line: none;">Advance Access</a> </b>soon]</i></p>Eleonora Rosatihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05629420303968805446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6631405922607116203.post-16580769606898734482020-10-05T13:44:00.008+01:002021-02-26T15:11:25.400+00:00The Authors' Take - Fundamental Rights as External Constraints on Copyright Law: Horizontal Effect of the EU Charter after Funke Medien and Spiegel Online<h1 style="text-align: center;"><b>Fundamental Rights as External Constraints on Copyright Law: Horizontal Effect of the EU Charter after <i>Funke Medien</i> and <i>Spiegel Online</i></b></h1><h2 style="text-align: center;"><i>by <a href="https://www.hanken.fi/en/person/daniel-jongsma">Daniël Jongsma</a></i></h2><div style="text-align: justify;">It is a well-known characteristic of European copyright systems: limitations and exceptions are exhaustively enumerated, they are precisely defined, and they are historically interpreted strictly or even restrictively. A result of this closed system is that certain uses may not be exempt from infringement even though they constitute an exercise of a fundamental right. For this reason, there has been a decades long debate about the answer to the question whether fundamental rights can serve as an autonomous defence against copyright infringement. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In its judgements in <b><a href="http://curia.europa.eu/juris/liste.jsf?num=C-469/17"><i>Funke Medien</i> (C-469/17)</a> </b>and <b><a href="http://curia.europa.eu/juris/liste.jsf?num=C-516/17"><i>Spiegel Online </i>(C-516/17)</a> </b>the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) appeared to resolutely reject the idea of fundamental rights as such “external constraints” on copyright. If this is true, one might conclude that the safeguarding of fundamental rights is to solely occur through an interpretation and application of copyright law itself that is, insofar as possible, consistent with those rights. This begs the question: what to do when a consistent interpretation is not possible, when a use that ought to be permitted from the perspective of fundamental rights nevertheless constitutes a copyright infringement? Has the CJEU placed EU copyright on a collision course with fundamental rights, for instance as protected by the <b><a href="https://www.echr.coe.int/documents/convention_eng.pdf">European Convention on Human Rights</a></b>? </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I do not think so. I conclude this on two grounds. First, I suggest that the CJEU did not conclusively rule on the question of so-called “horizontal direct effect” of fundamental rights in copyright cases. Second, and more important, <i>Funke Medien</i> and <i>Spiegel Online</i> only concerned the relationship between substantive copyright law and fundamental rights. They did not address the issue of remedies. Secondary EU legislation does not require that remedies are granted automatically upon a finding of infringement. Moreover, the <b><a href="https://ec.europa.eu/info/aid-development-cooperation-fundamental-rights/your-rights-eu/eu-charter-fundamental-rights_en">EU Charter of Fundamental Rights</a></b> may even require in certain cases that national courts refuse to enforce copyright. The CJEU must elucidate the boundaries set by the Charter. In my contribution to JIPLP I substantiate these conclusions and make some suggestions as to the limits EU law might impose onto national law.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i style="background-color: white; font-family: "times new roman", times, freeserif, serif; font-size: 15.4px;"><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>[This is an Authors' Take post, which provides readers with an insight into current IP scholarship, featuring preliminary comments and thoughts from authors of articles accepted for publication in forthcoming issues of the Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice (OUP). The full text of this contribution will be made available on <b><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/6631405922607116203/4052794649017796185#" style="color: #007cbb; text-decoration-line: none;">Advance Access</a> </b>soon]</i></div>Eleonora Rosatihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05629420303968805446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6631405922607116203.post-92085579038534015032020-08-23T10:26:00.005+01:002021-02-26T15:11:38.199+00:00The Authors' Take - Protection of Traditional Art Forms under Geographical Indications Law: A Case Study of Madhubani and Sujini Art Forms of Bihar, India<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Protection of Traditional Art Forms under Geographical Indications Law: A Case Study of Madhubani and Sujini Art Forms of Bihar, India</b></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: large;"><b>by <a href="https://www.deakin.edu.au/about-deakin/people/akanksha-jumde">Akanksha Jumde</a> and <a href="mailto:drnishant.law@gmail.com">Nishant Kumar</a></b></span></i></div>
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Using case studies of two of the oldest art forms practiced in Bihar, India, this article analyses challenges relating to the implementation of the law on Geographical Indications (GIs) in India, to better protect the rights and the craft of its most important stakeholders: the artists. This article is also a critique of the application of the current Indian GI regulatory framework to its traditional handicraft sectors. </div>
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To address the relevant research questions, we undertook qualitative interviews with Sujini and Madhubani artists, their representatives and officials from government bodies, supported by field visits to the Muzzafarpur district, Bihar. </div>
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We found that the GI label accorded to these art forms has become an effective tool for the artists’ self-expression. However, a GI registration has made limited contribution to ensure an increased economic rationale for their artists, and the reasons for that are manifold. These include, inter alia: lack of adequate government support in post-GI registration stages, ineffective provisions for quality control, discrepancies in the definition of ‘Goods’ and ‘GI’, the anomalous concept of ‘authorised user’, and difficulties in application for registration requirements. Issues with the construction and implementation of the law pose serious limitations to the rights of the artists to ensure economic returns from their artworks.</div>
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The findings derived with reference the Sujini and Madhubani artworks are also relevant to the broader question of whether GIs can protect the traditional knowledge (TK/IK) of the stakeholders of the handicraft industry, as well as other types of GI products. Based on some of the recommendations provided by existing studies on other types of GI, we suggest several legislative amendments to strengthen the extant legal framework on GIs in India. We also recommend several practical measures that can be taken by the artists or their associations for a more effective utilisation and enforcement of their GI rights.</div>
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<br /><i>[This is an Authors' Take post, which provides readers with an insight into current IP scholarship, featuring preliminary comments and thoughts from authors of articles accepted for publication in forthcoming issues of the Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice (OUP). The full text of this contribution will be made available on <b><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/6631405922607116203/4052794649017796185#" style="color: #007cbb; text-decoration-line: none;">Advance Access</a> </b>soon]</i> </div>
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Eleonora Rosatihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05629420303968805446noreply@blogger.com0