Around the IP Blogs!

Despite the heatwave that has gripped most of Europe, it has been a busy week around the IP weblogs! The IPKat purrs with excitement as it invites its readers on a brief tour.

Patents

Kluwer Patent Blog reflects on an intriguing development of potential concern from the perspective of English patent litigation. In its view, the last ten years have consistently witnessed outcomes less favourable to the patentees. But that trend seems to have shifted from 2017 and now more UK patents have been found to be valid.  

On 25 April 2018, the Higher Regional Court of Düsseldorf  issued a decision regarding confidentiality arrangements in standard essential patent litigation (I-2 W 8/18). The Court clarified that the parties’ right to file an inspection must, in principle, not be subjected to further conditions and a litigant must take confidentiality precautions (i.e. conclude an NDA) before disclosing its trade or business secrets to the court file. EPLAW has more: DE – CONFIDENTIALITY ROULETTE IN SEP PROCEEDINGS.

Copyright   

Our own Kat Neil Wilkof discusses a recent announcement by Disney/ESPN regarding the launch of ESPN+, a subscription based sports-streaming service. Will ESPN+ will be limited to being a niche form of live sports streaming OR will it want to make real money and go beyond streaming "secondary sports"; and if so, will it complement or cannibalize its current cable sports offerings? IP Finance: ESPN+ and the streaming of sports events--will it complement or cannibalize?

Kluwer Trademark Blog analyses a recent judgement rendered by the Regional Court of Hamburg (308 O 231/16), ruling on the use of original advertising material, such as product shots and video tutorials, by non-authorised dealers, and on how trademark law can bypass copyright law. The court evaluated the scope of a YouTube licence and the exhaustion principle and determined that use of the product shots constituted a straightforward instance of direct copyright infringement. However,  use of the video did not amount to copyright infringement, because the defendant had not addressed a “new public”  within  the scope of the CJEU Svensson judgment regarding the meaning of communication to the public.

Patently-O writes on the most recent iteration of a litigation saga between Google and Oracle. Google has now filed an en banc rehearing petition in its dispute with Oracle over copyrightability of the naming system for an application programming interface — namely Oracle’s Java API that Google copied. The petition comes in the aftermath of a Federal Circuit finding the API is a proper subject of copyright protection and is not subject to a fair use defence in this case.

This Kat is mindful of the First Amendment

Trade Marks

The Trademark Blog discusses the so-called Twitter Blocking Case, which was brought by The Knight First Amendment Institute against President Trump and his communications team. The Plaintiff contended that its First Amendment rights had been violated when  seven people from the @realDonaldTrump Twitter account were blocked because they criticized the president or his policies. On  summary judgment, Judge Buchwald upheld the claim.

Commercial Contracts

IP Draughts continues its theme of various aspects of the commercial contracts, turning this time to a focus on indemnity language. The complexity of contractual indemnity obligations are often mind-boggling and IP Draughts sets out  principles for untangling, simplifying or even entirely omitting such terms.

Image Credits: Jill Carlson (jillcarlson.org)