FRIDAY FLASHES - A QUICK ROUND-UP

Australian IP amendments go to House

Australian lawyer, patent attorney & IP strategy consultant Duncan Bucknell has posted a note on the Intellectual Property Laws Amendment Bill 2006, which was introduced yesterday into the House of Representatives of the Australian Commonwealth Parliament. Proposed amendments to the Patents Act include (i) clarification of the prior use defence to infringement; (ii) compulsory patent licences being ordered under the Trade Practices Act; (iii) the possibility of exemplary damages for patent infringement; (iv) a Bolar provision (a defence to pharmaceutical patent infringement in respect of unauthorised activities directed to obtaining regulatory approval). Duncan's note contains links to all relevant legislative materials and press releases.

The IPKat likes Duncan's website, which is a model of clarity compared with some he visits.


A miracle for a client

IPKat friend and IP/IT enthusiast Justin Patten (Human Law) reports that his client, artist Ed Miracle, has settled his copyright infringement claim against the publishers of Thomas Friedman's The World is Flat, which misappropriated one of his paintings ("I Told You So", left) for the front cover. Details of Justin and of the case itself can be found on his blog here.


Blizzard sued by WOW guide author

IP scholar and games enthusiast Yee Fen Lim has drawn the IPKat's attention to this news item from Gamespot on a dispute between Blizzard Entertainment, its parent company Vivendi Universal and the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) and 24-year-old Brian Kopp of Bronson, Florida as to whether eBay should be ordered to stop auctions of Kopp's book "The Ultimate World of Warcraft Leveling & Gold Guide", this being a manual for players of a massively multiple online role-playig game (MMORPG) with wizards, warriors and monsters that has attracted a following of six million subscribers worldwide since it debuted in 2004.

Blizzard, Vivendi and the ESA repeatedly sent eBay takedown notices under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, citing copyright and trade mark infringements. The auction giant's general policy is to halt auctions when it receives such complaints and to suspend a user's account after it racks up a certain number of warnings. Kopp, who denies infringement, continues to sell the book through another website. The dispute continues.