©-LAW

Does a blocking injunction against an intermediary only concern the domain names indicated in the relevant order or can it be also considered as encompassing future infringements committed through other domain names? This is the question that the Milan Court of First Instance (Tribunale di Milano) had to address in the context of interim proceedings between publisher Mondadori and a number of major Italian internet access providers (ISPs). It provided an interesting response in two twin decisions  [available  here ]  issued last June and which the IPKat has learned about thanks to Katfriend  Valentina Borgese . Background In 2017 publisher Mondadori requested the Milan Court of First Instance to issue an interim injunction against a number of major Italian internet access providers (ISPs) consisting of an order to adopt the most appropriate measures to block access to a platform and all the different domain names ( alias ) under which it o...

Kat at the beach Right before the summer break, on 7 August last, when most people had already turned their out-of-office auto-reply on or were getting ready to move to the beach, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) issued quite an interesting ruling -  SNB-REACT , C-521/17  - concerning enforcement of IP rights under Article 4(c) of the  Enforcement Directive  and the availability and scope of the safe harbours under the  E-Commerce Directive . Background This referral from Estonia was made in the context of proceedings that a collecting society, SNB-REACT, had initiated against an individual, Deepak Mehta, concerning the latter's alleged liability for infringement of the IP rights of 10 trade mark owners.  According to SNB-REACT, Mehta had allegedly registered a number of IP addresses and internet domain names, which  unlawfully used signs identical to the trade marks owned by SNB-REACT members, together w...

The Cordoba photo at issue in Renckhoff Today the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) issued its last copyright judgment  [but also - incredibly - the first copyright judgment of 2018]  before the summer break.  In  Renckhoff , C-161/17  it ruled - contrary to the  Opinion  of Advocate General Campos Sanchéz-Bordona  [ here  and  here ; ALAI thought it was very bad, and criticized it  here ]  - that in a situation like the one at issue the unauthorized re-posting of a copyright work would be an act of communication to the public within Article 3(1) of the  InfoSoc Directive . Background As readers might remember, this case had a fairly odd factual background.  The national proceedings relate in fact to copyright litigation that a photographer has brought in Germany against a school over the use, by one of the pupils, of copyright-protected material without authorization.  ...

As  announced  earlier today, this morning Advocate General (AG) Wathelet issued his  Opinion   [not yet available in English]   in  Levola Hengelo , C-310/17 . He advised the Court of Justice of the European Union to rule that the taste of a cheese - Dutch spreadable cheese  Heks’nkaas (for which a patent was registered in 2012 and a word trade mark is registered)  -  is not eligible for copyright protection as a 'work' under the  InfoSoc Directive . While the  outcome  of the Opinion may be sensible, its  content  raises a number of issues and, potentially, problems. But, first, let's see how the AG reasoned. Concept of 'work' At the outset, the AG tackled what is to be intended as 'work' under the InfoSoc Directive, this being a notion that this piece of EU legislation does not define.  Despite this, 'work' should be regarded as an autonomous concept of EU law ...