SONY SEEKS INTERIM INJUNCTION IN PSP CASE

Gameindustry.biz reports that Sony failed to gain an interim injunction at the beginning of the week against Nuplayer, an online retailer that has been selling Sony’s PSP game system.

Sony has released the PSP games system overseas, but has delayed its release in Europe. Nuplayer began offering them online to UK consumers and Sony sought an interim injunction. Nuplayer offered to remove Sony’s trade marks from its websites and the packaging so that consumers would only see that this was a Sony product when they opened the box. Sony countered that this would deface its products and so would still be infringement.

The judge said that he needed some time to decide whether to grant the injunction. At the time the story was reported by Gamesindustry.biz his judgment was expected today or Monday, but the IPKat suspect that since the courts have been disrupted by the events in London, judgment may be at some time near the beginning of next week.

Has the court been involved in empirical testing of the PSP system? Merpel asks

The IPKat thinks Nuplayer’s offer is a little odd – wouldn’t selling Sony’s products without Sony’s trade marks count as reverse passing off (when a defendant fails to make clear where genuine goods of the claimant originated from and passed them off as his own)?