“One man’s legally sanctioned privateer is another man’s pirate.”
[James Wadsworth, Global Piracy: A Documentary History of Seaborne Banditry (2019), at p. 8]
We live in a time of contradictions and confusion, and today we aim to explore how some such tensions have manifested themselves in the area of intellectual property law.
THE SUPREME COURT CONFIRMED THAT RUSSIAN USERS MAY FILE A LAWSUIT AGAINST AN AMERICAN SOCIAL NETWORK TO A RUSSIAN COURTThe Supreme Court of the Russian Federation reviewed a case initiated by a number of Internet users against the American social network Facebook Inc.
The Russian users filed a lawsuit against Facebook Inc. based on the Terms of Service violations. Moreover, the users also motivated their lawsuit by illegal use of their personal data.
On 27 May 2020 WIPO launched new online business service, WIPO PROOF1, that provides tamper-proof evidence of the existence at a point in time of any digital file, including data sets, in any format.
The WIPO PROOF service generates tamper-proof evidence proving that a digital file existed at a specific point in time, and that it has not been altered since that time. An evidence in this case will be a digital WIPO PROOF token which consists of a date- and time-stamped digital fingerprint of the file (or data).
For the Patent and Trail Appeal Board (“PTAB”), the PTAB allows a petition for inter parties review (“IPR”) to request cancellation of claims in a U.S. patent. For an inter parties review of a patent, the PTAB institutes review and determines if claims of a patent are unpatentable. Can the PTAB cancel claims based on indefiniteness during an IPR? The answer is NO!
Although in Greece, in principle, no permit is required for filming in public open-air spaces, there are few exceptions to the above rule that could make the situation a little bit complex. These exceptions are mostly linked with the venue where the filming is going to take place, regardless of whether we are talking about a film, a commercial video, a documentary or news reports and of whether the journalists and/or crew represent foreign or local media and producers. The present article aims to give useful and practical insight on the above issues due to the fact that there have been recent legislation amendments.
Intellectual property rights are – by definition – monopolistic. How, then, can researchers, charities and NGOs collaborate with business in the development of new technologies to control and eradicate COVID-19?
In the past several years, the food and beverage space has seen an explosion of innovation—alternative meat products, plant-based dairy and protein alternatives, CBD- and collagen-infused everything, and functional foods and beverages and containing everything from pre/pro/post-biotics to nootropic and adaptogenic herbs, just to name a few. And many of these innovations have led to wildly successful products with household brand recognition (think: Impossible Foods and Vital Proteins).
While many of these brands may be protected by robust trademark portfolios, what role have patents played in defining their territory in the market? Patent protection can add significant value to an emerging brand by keeping competitors at bay, serving as an asset or collateral to secure financing, or as leverage to license across different industries or markets. Yet, the vast majority of conventional foods occupying the shelves of your local grocery store are likely not covered by a utility patent. Which begs the question, are food products patentable?
In its unanimous April 23, 2020 opinion in Romag Fasteners v. Fossil, Inc., the Supreme Court made clear once and for all that a successful trademark plaintiff is not required to establish that the defendant’s infringement was willful to be entitled to an award of the infringer’s profits. In other words, profits may be disgorged for less than willful infringement of a trademark.
Canada’s COVID-19 Emergency Response Act came into force on March 25, 2020. Perhaps overlooked amongst emergency relief, health care and financial effects is Part 12 of the Act which makes changes to the Patent Act.
Why should the general public care about this? I’m glad you asked.
At the end of 2019, Federal Law No. 405-FZ1 entered into force. This act has significantly increased administrative liability for violations of the requirements on the localization of databases containing personal data of Russian nationals. We already wrote about this amendment earlier.
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