©-LAW

Are tattoos protected by copyright? If so, can a person give a third party permission to use their likeness (which includes displaying the tattoos attached to their body) without the consent of the tattoo artist who realized said tattoos? These intriguing questions have been raised in a number of jurisdictions  [see IPKat posts  here ,  here ,  here ,  here ,  here ,  here ,  here ; see also  here  for the (in)famous tattoo copyright headache surrounding  The Hangover - Part II ]  though conclusive answers were not really provided … at least until very recently. Earlier this week, in fact, the US District Court for the Southern District of New York issued its  much-awaited summary judgment opinion (16-CV-724-LTS-SDA)  in the (long-standing) proceedings initiated by a company (Solid Oak), which seemingly holds an exclusive copyright licence in the tattoos of NBA players  Eric Bledsoe ,  LeBron James...

At home and studying IP? The Coronavirus outbreak has been posing major challenges  also  to IP education, with many university classes now moving or already moved online.  Besides the rich IPKat archive, I would like to list in this post some free IP materials I have developed over time and which students/teachers are very welcome to use also at these challenging times. Here we go: Copyright Linking under EU Copyright Law Right of Communication to the Public – Potential Liability Under Article 3(1) InfoSoc Directive Copyright Infringement Checklist UK Copyright Exceptions Copyright in Europe: Main (potential) life events of a work Article 17 Obligations ... In a Chart (Article 17 DSM Directive) Does the DSM Directive mean the same thing in all language versions? The case of 'best efforts' in Article 17(4)(a) Trade Marks EU/National Trade Marks (TMs): Main Life Events (Potential) Trade Mark Infringement Checklist Online intermediari...

In late February, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) issued its long-awaited  [the  Opinion  of Advocate General (AG) Bobek, on which see  here , had been released in July 2019]  judgment in  Constantin Film , C-240/18 P , aka the  Fack Ju Göhte  case concerning the interpretation of the morality absolute ground in EU trade mark (EUTM) law. The decision is both interesting and important for a number of reasons, including trade mark law, the role of freedom of expression, and also ... copyright.  Let’s see, first, what happened and, then, what the implications of the ruling are. Background Can the sign ‘Fack Ju Göhte’, which is also the name of a  successful German comedy  (followed by two sequels) be registered as an EUTM? Things have not proved easy for this application, initially filed in 2015 for a variety of goods and services in various classes under the  previous Regulation   [t...

Is a functional shape eligible for copyright protection under the  InfoSoc Directive ? This, in a nutshell, is the intriguing issue that the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has been asked to address in  Brompton Bicycle , C-833/18 . As readers might guess, the shape at issue in this case is Brompton's iconic foldable bike, originally created in 1975 and sold in its current form since 1987: This morning, Advocate General (AG) Campos Sánchez-Bordona issued his  Opinion . He advised the Court to rule that, if the shape is  exclusively  dictated by the technical function of the relevant product, then no copyright subsists in it.  Whilst this conclusion appears reasonable and in line with existing CJEU case law, including - most recently - the  Cofemel  decision  [ here ; for a recent application, see  here ] , the Opinion appears to go a bit astray from that, at least in one notable respect (read on)....

IPKat-approved jacquard fabric Yesterday, the  Intellectual Property Enterprise Court  (IPEC, a specialist court which is part of the Business and Property Courts of the High Court of Justice of England and Wales) issued what appears to be the first UK decision tackling the implications of the judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in  Cofemel , C-683/17   [see  here ;  Cofemel  was also awarded the prestigious  Kat-award 'Copyright Decision of the Year 2019' ] . It is the decision in  Response Clothing Ltd v The Edinburgh Woollen Mill Ltd  [2020] EWHC 148 (IPEC) (29 January 2020) . Background The claimant, Response, is a clothing company; the defendant, EWM, is a major retailer of clothing with about 400 stores in the UK. Between 2009 and 2012, Response supplied EWM with ladies tops made of a  jacquard fabric  of a design referred to as a 'wave arrangement'. In 2012, Response attempt...