Ireland IP & Technology Law Blog : Dublin Lawyers & Attorneys for Intellectual Property, Communications & Information Technology Law in Ireland, U.S. & England

On Friday 19 November, the Innovation Academy, which is the educational centrepiece of the TCD-UCD Innovation Alliance, was officially opened. The Academy's mission is to develop  "a new breed of creative graduate, expert in their discipline, but with a thorough understanding of how innovation can rapidly convert knowledge, ideas and inventions into products, services and policies for economic and social benefit".

33 PhD students from TCD and UCD enrolled in the Academy in September and are currently taking modules towards the joint TCD-UCD Certificate in Innovation and Entrepreneurship.

The Innovation Alliance was formed by the two universities last year as part of the national initiative to create a Smart Economy, and it is said that the Academy will play a central role in developing Ireland as a global hub for innovation.

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The UK Court of Appeal has allowed some of the grounds of appeal from a High Court decision on the infringement and validity of two patents relating to wound-dressings. The Court disagreed with the construction the High Court had put on the claims of the first patent and held that the Appellant did not infringe. On the ground of claim construction the Court also held that one of the asserted claims of the second patent was invalid. 

 Interestingly the Court found that Arnold J had applied the wrong test for contributory infringement taking into account the recent Court of Appeal decision on the interpretation of contributory infringement (see article below by same author on 22 October).

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On 4 November 2010, the EC Commission issued a Communication entitled “A comprehensive approach on personal data protection in the European Union”. Following a review of the current EU data protection legislation and a public consultation, several issues were identified as being problematic and posing challenges to the current EU legislative framework. These issues include the need to address the impact of new technologies and the need to streamline international data transfers.

The Communication sets out the Commission’s strategy for modernising the EU legislative framework to take account of these challenges. The key objectives of the strategy are to:

- strengthen individuals’ rights;
- enhance the internal market dimension;
- revise data protection rules in the area of police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters;
- ensure high levels of protection for data transferred outside the EU; and
- improve the enforcement of data protection rules.

The Commission will accept feedback, by 15 January 2011, on the issues raised in this Communication and will propose legislation in 2011. The Commission also intends to pursue non-legislative measures, such as encouraging self-regulation and self-awareness campaigns, in parallel.

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 JK Rowling will be unhappy with a recent refusal of the English High Court to grant summary judgment on a copyright infringement claim made against her and her publishers.

The copyright claim is made by the trustee for the estate of Adrian Jacobs, the author of a book called Willy the Wizard (WTW). It is claimed that JK Rowling read WTW before writing any of the Harry Potter books and that aspects of the plot, sub-plots, themes and incidents in WTW were copied into the fourth book in the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. In an attempt to get the infringement claim thrown out, JK Rowling and her publishers applied for summary judgment on the basis that the claim had no real prospect of success. It was argued that JK Rowling had never heard of WTW before writing the Harry Potter books and that any similarities between the books had arisen by chance. Kitchin J decided however that there was some prospect of the infringement claim succeeding at trial, and he dismissed the application.

Although JK Rowling and her publishers are now faced with the preparation of a full trial, they will no doubt be consoled by the opinion expressed by Kitchin J that it is improbable that the claim will succeed. It may also be a source of consolation that in his decision, Kitchin J closely followed the approach of the Court of Appeal in a previous, unsuccessful infringement claim against Dan Brown’s novel, The Da Vinci Code (see Baigent v Random House Group Ltd [2007] EWCA Civ 247).

For the full decision of Kitchin J click here.

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