ILLUSTRATIONS ON THE ECJ WEBSITE: IMPROVING THE PICTURE

Users of the European Court of Justice website may have been dismayed, as the IPKat has been, by their failure to access artwork such as images of signs and trade marks. Reports of cases from the Court of First Instance, in particular, on appeals from the OHIM Boards of Appeal, suffer from this blight. The annoyance of ECJ website users is sometimes compounded by the fact that CFI judgments do not always cite an adequate reference to the text of the OHIM Board of Appeal decision from which the relevant artwork can be viewed.

The IPKat thanks Piter de Weerd (NautaDutilh) for telling him that the problem is likely to be resolved in the near future. He wrote to the ECJ’s Press and Information Division, which responded as follows:

“Unfortunately our current system WordPerfect does not allow the conversion of images into HTML which is the format on the internet site. We are however working on a new system (XML) for the internet site which will allow the images to be shown. This system will be introduced shortly, so please have a little patience, and you will soon be able to see the images”.

The IPKat shares Mr de Weerd’s feeling that the ECJ’s continued use of WordPerfect is a little disconcerting and agrees with him that, notwithstanding the criticisms made of it, the ECJ’s normal practice of posting decisions on the internet on the day they are handed down to the parties is one which should be emulated on other international and national court websites.

Is a picture worth a thousand words? Click here, here or here to find out.
Graphic images, symbols and representations