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Friday fantasies
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Here's a reminder for readers who quite properly concern themselves with such trivia as whether they are giving (or taking) legal advice that comes from a reliable source. The Official Journal of the European Union has published on a number of...
Framing of videos: Court of Justice to rule
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Merpel sniffs the water forsigns of pollution*Yesterday the First Civil Senate of the German Bundesgerichtshof (BGH) -- one of the most active and influential national intellectual property courts you can ever hope to find in the new Europe -- referr...
The IP Lawyer's Nightmare: "But Everyone Else Does It"
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This blog is about one of the most dreaded moments in the life of any IP attorney. You have been asked by your client whether it can take some action, such as use of certain content taken from the internet or adoption of a trade mark "based" on the m...
Carry-on over Cariou: when works are transformative 'as a matter of law'
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In a world of fluctuating intellectual property law, we are used to seeing trends of judicial thought drifting first in one direction and then in another, as courts struggle to maintain the balance between rights owners and their competitors and betw...
From Alice to Apple: patentable subject matter crosses the Atlantic
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The theme of patentable subject matter, as laid down by statute and as interpreted by the courts, was the subject of a careful and detailed analysis by Professor Norman Siebrasse in his guest post yesterday on CLS v Alice. By way of contrast wi...
The IPKat gets Spicy - more detail on the Indian Supreme Court Glivec Decision
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This Kat was delighted to be contacted by Katfriend Prashant Reddy of the most excellent Spicy IP blog (the place to go for masterful analysis of Indian IP matters) following his earlier post here, which rather criticised the novelty analysis of the...
Bowman v Monsanto: the US Supreme Court rules on patent exhaustion and replication of patented seeds
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Yesterday, the Supreme Court of the United States delivered its long-awaited judgment in the case of Bowman v Monsanto Co. et Al., unanimously ruling that 'patent exhaustion does not permit a farmer to reproduce patented seeds through planting and ha...
Wake up and smell the coffee: Arnold J gets real with consumables and indirect patent infringement
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What happens when coffee and Kats combine - something too cute to drinkThe AmeriKat loves many things. Fresh lemonade. Kittens' paw pads. Summer thunderstorms. Napping. And Section 60(2) of the Patents Act 1977. Its true. There is something about the...
Autocomplete: can Google turn bad news into good profit?
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If you thought autocomplete was about puttingcars together, think again!The IPKat has just this minute learned of a ruling, hot off the press, from Germany's very own Bundesgerichtshof in BGH Case VI ZR 269/12 of 14 May 2013). That country's top app...
The wrong tool for the wrong job: time to keep the US courts away from patentable subject matter?
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Like many of this weblog's readers, this Kat has long nurtured a fascination and deep admiration for the United States Federal judiciary. Unlike the judges of the Court of Justice of the European Union, who rarely appear to be qualified to deal...
Fighting Counterfeiting with Accessibility
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It seems obvious, really. If pharma companies are so concerned about people buying counterfeit versions of their drugs online, why don't they make it easier for these good and vulnerable folk to buy the genuine product directly from them? In th...
Monday miscellany
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Stornoway Black Pudding,as viewed from the insideOne of the more obscure, if intriguing, pieces of European Union legislation to cross the IPKat's line of vision in the past few days has been the splendidly-named Commission Implementing Regulation (E...
Time to spare? Want to understand copyright a bit better? This may just be for you
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Authorship? This illustrationis a good example of artworkthat has come adrift from itsauthor on the internet. Cananyone identify the author?As a great believer in spreading the word, this Kat considers that -- whatever you are doing in the field of c...
F/RAND and SEPs: the EU Commission objects to Motorola's conduct
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On 18 March 1848, the city of Milan rose against the Austrian garrison and marshal Radetzky. Five days later, the rebellion forced the Austrian forces to withdraw from the city. Some 165 years later, it took this Kat five days to spot and report news...
"The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" and Criminal Libel
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This Kat joined several of his blogging colleagues in Dallas to take part in the INTA Annual Meeting. Indeed, he has in his possession a picture, taken together with several of the iconic Dallas Cheerleaders here (with the full knowledge of Mrs Kat),...
The IPKat in despair - What is to be done when senior courts don't understand novelty?
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One of the privileges of being a blogger is the ability, from time to time, to rant. This moggy doesn’t do this very often, and indeed tends to eschew the polemical most of his time. If you want to know why, you will have to ask his...
The IPKat visits INTA 3: some final thoughts and observations
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Readers may have wondered why, following two posts on Monday on the International Trademark Association (INTA) Meeting in Dallas (here and here), there have been no further INTA Katposts till now. Had the Kat been hibernating or, worse than that, mer...
A question for the UK government: will simpler IP law mean less law -- or more?
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This Kat may be thousands of miles from home, but he does keep up to date when he can through leads kindly forwarded to him by friends and readers. He was thus delighted to receive from old Katfriend Chris de Mauny this link to the BBC's report on to...
Milan Court of First Instance rules in favour of Guess in the Gucci/Guess saga
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IPKat team members' keyringCan IP litigation stories be as appealing to the general public as Italian gossip characters' weddings or Beyonce's pre-show rituals? The answer is definitely 'yes', when the IP story in question is (1) a trade m...
Case T‑579/10, a list of dos and don'ts for trade mark litigation in the EU
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Yesterday, while keeping an eye on the fourth stage of the Giro d'Italia, this Kat spotted the latest judgment of the EU General Court, in case T-579/10, macros consult GmbH - Unternehmensberatung für Wirtschafts - und Finanztechnologie v OHIM -...
