©-LAW

Overturning the decisions  at first instance   [IPKat report  here  and  here ]  and on  appeal   [IPKat report  here ] ,  this morning the UK Supreme Court has  ruled  that the ISPs (internet access providers) do NOT have to bear the costs of implementation of the injunction (in this case, a blocking injunction) issued against them pursuant to  section 37(1) of the Senior Courts Act 1981 (SCA) , requiring them to block access to a number of websites making available for sale goods infringing trade mark rights. As  explained in this post , the appeal to the UK Supreme Court focused indeed on the issue of cost allocation.  The previous episodes Although Kitchin LJ (writing for the Court of Appeal) acknowledged that " the ISPs are not guilty of any wrongdoing”, nor do they owe a common law duty of care to take reasonable care to ensure that their services are not used by the operators o...

The Louboutin mark Is the Louboutin red sole mark a valid trade mark or not? At last - the moment all IP aficionados were waiting for has come!  The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has just issued its much-awaited judgment in  Louboutin  C-163/16 , ruling that  a  mark consisting of a colour applied to the sole of a shoe is NOT covered by the prohibition of the registration of shapes .  Such a mark does not consist ‘exclusively of the shape’. The question that the  Rechtbank Den Haag referred to the CJEU was the following: Is the notion of ‘shape’ within the meaning of Article 3(1)(e)(iii) of  [the  2008 Trade Mark Directive , ie the absolute ground for refusal concerning  signs consisting exclusively of "the shape which gives substantial value to the goods" ]   (‘Form’, ‘vorm’ and ‘forme’ in the German, Dutch and French language versions of the Trade Marks Directive respectively) limite...

Clearly looking at something very interesting While it is true that Member States retain significant freedom in devising relevant procedures for repressing copyright infringements and awarding damages,  Article 8 of the  InfoSoc Directive  requires  resulting sanctions and remedies be effective, proportionate and dissuasive. This provision is in line with what also Article 3 of the  Enforcement Directive  mandates. In this sense, the question that arises – and has actually arisen – is whether it is compatible with EU law to provide that the owner of an internet connection, through which copyright infringements have been committed, may escape liability thereof by indicating, without the need to provide any further details, a family member that has also had access to such connection. In a nutshell, this is the issue at stake in  Bastei Lübbe  C-149/17 , a reference for a preliminary ruling from the District Court Munich I (Ger...

Ready for some licensed TV? Can the making available – following payment of an IPTV subscription fee – of streams to  unlicensed content amount to an infringement of copyright/related rights? This is the issue that the District Court of Limburg (in Maastricht, The Netherlands) had to address in a recent case that anti-piracy foundation Brein brought against Leaper (also acting as ‘Flickstore’, ‘Dump Die Deal’ and ‘Live TV Store’). Unsurprisingly, the court answered in the affirmative. The judgment (in Dutch) is available  here . What is interesting is the reasoning of the court, which also reviewed the interpretation of Article 3 of the  InfoSoc Directive  as provided by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in its fairly rich case law. Leaper’s service The service offered by Leaper was structured as follows: further to payment by the consumer of the subscription fee, Leaper would send him a unique activation code (this,...