The Assessment of damages- “the exercise of a sound imagination and the practice of the broad axe” The aim of damages, in relation to intellectual property rights infringement, is to put the injured party back into the position he would have been in, had there never been an infringement in the first place. There are…
DetailsGroundless Threats – the Reforms Following an investigation by the Law Commission the UK government recently published a press release on the issue of “groundless threats” in relation to patents, registered / unregistered design right and trade marks (copyright doesn’t have any threats provisions). The Problem Intellectual property rights are important to businesses. If they…
DetailsDon’t mention the war It may surprise you to read that under English law and unlike in the USA, there is no absolute right to keep personal information confidential. However, over the years, case law has developed to a point where, under certain circumstances, a person has the right to keep certain information private. Confidence…
DetailsAs part of a global body, 26 privacy regulators from across the world have surveyed 1,211 mobile apps to investigate the transparency of their privacy practices. Of those, the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (the ICO) was responsible for studying 50 of the top apps released by UK developers. Out of the results, most notable was…
DetailsOn 1 October 2014, the Copyright and Rights in Performances (Personal Copies for Private Use) Regulations 2014 came into force, implementing Article 5(2)(b) of the Copyright Directive (2001/29/EC) to provide, for the first time in UK law, an exception to copyright infringement for the purposes of private copying. This new exception allows individuals in the…
DetailsRihanna’s image is protected under the ‘umbrella’ of passing off The Court of Appeal dismissed Topshop’s appeal, confirming that its sale of the t-shirt bearing Rihanna’s image amounted to passing off. Topshop started selling a t-shirt in 2012 which had on the front an image of a photograph taken of Rihanna by an independent photographer.…
DetailsAs a business it is important to consider how much your intellectual property rights are worth. This is not just relevant to business owners who are thinking of selling their business to another, it is also relevant to businesses who may wish to invest in a particular product/ brand or licence the same. Before attempting…
DetailsA Californian student brought an interesting lawsuit against her ex boyfriend recently, by suing him for copyright infringement. The work in question was a home made video and some photos that the girl had taken of her naked self and sent to her then boyfriend. Unfortunately, when the couple split, the jilted ex…
DetailsI know that taste… A US court has recently ruled, in the case of New York Pizzeria v Ravinder Syal that a restaurant couldn’t claim trade mark rights over the taste of one of its pizzas. A ‘mark’ is entitled to trade mark protection only if it denotes the source of the product or service…
DetailsYou may be aware of registered trade marks. You may have even registered some in the UK or Europe. But have you registered any in China? If you make and sell footwear then there is a good chance that your manufacturing is done in China. You might even sell in the country. If you do,…
DetailsICO Fines NHS Surrey In July, the Information Commissioner’s Office (the ICO) fined NHS Surrey £200,000 as a result of NHS Surrey providing at least 1,570 computers with hard drives containing personal data to a contractor for erasure/destruction without properly monitoring the contractor. The contractor was permitted to sell on the computer hardware after having…
DetailsIt is now a well-established practice for many brand owners to secure registered trade mark protection, at least in their key territories of business. Indeed, it has also become standard practice to register various domain names incorporating those trade marks and/or close variations. However, it is less common for brand owners to register trade marks…
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