COURT GRANTS GRANT A DISCOVERY DISCOVERY; GOOD NEWS IF YOU LOVE INTERNATIONAL DESIGNS

Court grants Grant a Discovery discovery

Grant v Google, a decision of Mr Justice Rimer in the Chancery Division yesterday, was spotted by the IPKat on All England Direct.

Grant was a trustee of the Discovery Trust (the trust), which allegedly owned the copyright in a work, Unlock Reality, which was due to be published in the UK and the US later this year. The trust discovered that an earlier draft of the work was available on the internet, without its authorisation, via a free download generated by the Google internet search engine, which led to the www.realityunlock.com website.

The trust discovered that the website was registered by a company that specialised in cloaking the identity of domain owners. Having failed to ascertain who the domain owner was, the trust sought Google's aid in identifying the party concerned, to prevent further copyright infringement. Google declined to reveal the identity, but suggested to the trust that it seek an order requesting such disclosure, which it would not oppose. Consequently, Grant applied for an order requiring Google to make such disclosure.

Rimer J granted the application. Google had become mixed up in the wrongdoing of others, but was at least in a position to disclose the identity of the wrongdoer if a court so ordered. However the trust would have to pay Google's costs of providing the required information.

The IPKat assumes that the cost to Google of providing the information would be pretty trivial. Merpel adds that the cost of getting the order was pretty trivial too: neither side instructed a lawyer for the hearing.

All you ever need to know about reality here and here
All you ever need to know about unlocking here and here


Good news if you love international designs

If you've been worrying about what the European Commission thinks about the European Parliament's desire to link the Community design to WIPO's International Design regime, the IPKat can tell you here and now that there's no need to lose any more sleep: the Commisssion has welcomed the plan. In the words of today's Press Release:

"The proposals would allow companies, with a single application, to obtain protection of a design not only throughout the EU with the Community design, but also in the countries which are members of the Geneva Act of the Hague Agreement concerning the international registration of industrial designs. The first proposal relates to the accession of the European Community to the Geneva Act. The second proposal contains the necessary provisions to give effect to that accession, in particular through an amendment of Council Regulation 6/2002 on Community Designs".