©-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...

Can an injunction be sought against an access provider that would require this to block access not to a website  [as per the standard scenario]  but rather streaming servers giving unauthorised access to copyright content? Can such an injunction consist of a 'live' blocking, ie a block limited to when the relevant content is being streamed?  An application of this kind was recently and  successfully  made - for the first time as far as the UK is concerned - by the Football Association Premier League (FAPL, supported by other rightholders) against 6 main retail internet service providers (ISPs). In yesterday's decision in  FAPL v BT  [2017] EWHC 480 Ch  Arnold J concluded that the High Court has jurisdiction to make an order of the kind sought by FAPL. The law Arnold J noted at the outset how the law on copyright blocking injunctions under  s97A of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act (CDPA)   [by which the UK transp...

Yesterday the stunning London offices of Simmons & Simmons hosted a  panel discussion  on  the implications of the recent   Court of Appeal judgment   in  Cartier  [ here ] .  The debate also included the question of who should bear the costs of a blocking injunction: should it be intermediaries or rightholders? The  Cartier  decision and the dissent on costs In its ruling the Court of Appeal upheld the  decision  of Arnold J at first instance  [noted  here  and  here ]  and confirmed that blocking injunctions can be also sought in online trade mark cases, even lacking an express implementation into UK law of the third sentence of Article 11 of the  Enforcement Directive  (" Member States shall also ensure that rightholders are in a position to apply for an injunction against intermediaries whose services are used by a third party to infringe an intellectual property rig...