The Commission Publishes and Dispels "Myths" Around ACTA
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The European Commission has published the final text of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) which is an agreement aimed at strengthening the enforcement of intellectual property (IP) rights and combating counterfeiting and piracy. The European Union participated in the negotiation of this agreement and has also published “10 myths about ACTA” to dispel the allegations that ACTA is unlike the US SOPA legislation (see here for the “10 myths about ACTA”).
ACTA sets out the legal framework and enforcement practices for enforcement of IP rights as follows. Although some of the framework is fairly high level, leaving a lot to individual a Member State’s discretion, there are also some meatier terms. The main controversy around ACTA has been around the provisions addressing infringement in the digital environment The ACTA provides, at Section 5, paragraph 2 that:
"Each Party’s enforcement procedures shall apply to infringement of copyright or related rights over digital networks, which may include the unlawful use of means of widespread distribution for infringing purposes. These procedures shall be implemented in a manner that avoids the creation of barriers to legitimate activity, including electronic commerce, and, consistent with each Party’s law, preserves fundamental principles such as freedom of expression, fair process, and privacy."
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A rundown of our top eleven IP & Technology stories of 2011:.jpg){kind=small}
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Council Regulation 1383/2003 (the Regulation) permits customs authorities to take certain actions where goods entering the European Union (the EU) from non-member states are suspected of infringing intellectual property rights recognised in the EU. This includes suspending release of, or detaining the goods. Under the Regulation, such goods include, amongst others, counterfeit goods (goods infringing a trade mark right), pirated goods (goods infringing copyright or related right or design rights) and goods which infringe a patent under the law of the member state whose customs authorities are seeking to take action.
For the later part of this year, I have been watching with great interest (partly due to a fondness for the subject matter) the passing off case involving bread makers McCambridge’s and Brennans. McCambridge’s sued Brennans claiming deliberate copying of its brown bread packaging which would cause confusion within the market. You might wonder what sparked such action. The matter seems to have arisen after Brennans changed the design and colour of its packaging in January 2011, adopting a transparent, resealable packaging with a dark green rectangle on the front of the packaging and McCambridges’ claimed that this re-branding would result in confusion amongst its own customers. Would you be confused, see for yourself:.bmp)
The modern Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) law system was born out of China’s need to develop its market economy in the early 1980s. Within the past three decades China has built up a relatively comprehensive and advanced Intellectual Property Laws and enforcement procedures.
A recent decision (Ardis Health LLC et al. v. Nankivell)of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York dated 19 October 2011, provides a good insight into the best practices for parties contracting in the social media space.
The ECJ has, in a judgment released today (Scarlet Extended SA (“Scarlet”) v Societe belge des auteurs, compositeurs et editeurs (“SABAM”), Case C-70/10), indicated that an order requiring a Belgian internet service provider to filter certain peer to peer files is not permissible under EU law..jpg)
The British Phonographic Industry (BPI) has requested BT to use its own software to block users from accessing “Pirate Bay”, a website which provides access to illegal downloads of music, film and game files. While it does not store content, Pirate Bay facilitates access to sites which breach copyright via an index of links. .jpg)
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You might recall that last April we wrote about the long awaited opinion from the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) on the European Council’s draft agreement establishing a new European and Community Patent Court (Patent Court). That opinion was finally issued in March with the CJEC ruling that the draft international agreement put forward by the Council is incompatible with EU Treaties..jpg)
The recent case of Nokia GmbH and Others .v. IPCom GmbH & Co. involved an appeal against a decision of Mr Justice Floyd who had held that IPCom’s two European Patents (relating to cellular mobile phone technology), were invalid for obviousness..jpg)
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The UK Court of Appeal reversed an aspect of the decision of Floyd J in a recent patent infringement case. The decision is of general interest for its discussion of the interpretation of contributory infringement under section 60(2) of the Patents Act 1977 and the Court's views on the following of decisions of other national courts..jpg)
On Monday Mr Justice Peter Charleton gave judgement in favour of UPC against the Irish record industry in a landmark copyright case. The Judge determined that the Plaintiff had not succeeded in its attempt to procure an injunction against the internet service provider. UPC had claimed that it had no liability under the Copyright and Related Rights Act 2000 and argued that it was a mere conduit for illegal downloading. The Judge held that copyright law made no proper provision for the blocking, diverting or interrupting of internet communications intent on breaching copyright..jpg)
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Recently the UK Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) announced that the scope of the CAP Code (a set of rules setting down standards for advertising) will be extended to a company’s own website and other non-paid-for online space which is controlled by a company..jpg)
The eagerly awaited Advocates General of the ECJ’s opinion on the proposed single European patent system and European Patents Court (EEUPC) has recently been published..jpg)
The recent UK High Court case of 
The ECJ has ruled that Anhueser-Busch InBev should be restricted from registering the word ‘BUDWEISER’ as a Community trade mark. This decision puts this particular aspect of the long running legal battle between the two parties to an end. The drama began on 1 April 1996 when Anheuser-Busch filed an application with OHIM for registration as a Community Trade Mark of the word sign ‘BUDWEISER’.
A decision in the US district court has declared that Google-owned website YouTube is not guilty of copyright infringement when users post videos to the site without permission. The Court ruled that liability for copyright infringement only arises once a copyright owner makes YouTube aware of any illegal videos on its site and it fails to act to remove them from its site.
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At its meeting in Brussels on 4 December 2009, the European Council took a significant step towards 
On 23 March, Ms Justice Finlay Geoghegan referred a number of questions to the European Court of Justice arising from an action taken by the music collecting society, Phonographic Performance (Ireland) Ltd (PPI), against the State..jpg)
You may recall that in January of last year Eircom agreed to implement a “three strikes and you’re out” policy as part of an out of court settlement with IRMA. Eircom agreed to work with the “Big Four” music labels in Ireland – Universal, Warner, Sony and EMI – to help them pursue illegal downloaders and uploaders. Under the system Eircom customers downloading music from peer-to-peer services were to receive two warnings after which they would be disconnected if they continued to engage in the activity. The settlement agreement set a precedent and it was expected that all other ISPs in the Irish market would be compelled to follow suit.
