DOMAIN NAME DATA; NO NO NOVA ...

Domain name data

www.ipkat.com

After a lot of fiddling and fumbling, caused mainly by his own ineptitude and a paucity (paw-city?) of other people to blame, the IPKat has finally managed to divert www.ipkat.com visitors to the site on http://ipkitten.blogspot.com. This means - at last - that you can use the www.ipkat.com url and get straight through to the blog itself.


www.jeremyphillips.eu

IPKat co-blogmeister Jeremy has also managed to divert his personal pages at http://jeremyphillips.blogspot.com to his new url at www.jeremyphillips.eu (the .com suffix has already been taken by a somewhat more artistic person of the same name). The .eu bit actually seems quite appropriate, given Jeremy's strong European IP connections, notably his work with MARQUES (the Association of European Trade Mark Owners) and his editorship of the European Trade Mark Reports.


No, No, Nova ...

Yesterday in case [2006] EWCA Civ 1044 the Court of Appeal for England and Wales (Lords Justices Waller, Jonathan Parker and Jacob LJ) turned down an application to refer Nova Productions Ltd v Mazooma Games Ltd and others (noted here by the IPKat) to the European Court of Justice for a preliminary ruling. This was because Nova's appeal against the decision of Mr Justice Kitchin could probably be determined without the need for such a ruling.

As Lord Justice Jacob indicated, whichever way a ruling might go, Nova would probably still fail to establish infringement on the facts: either what was taken by the defendant was insubstantial or, if it were substantial, it was the taking of no more than an idea. If, following the hearing, the court did decide to refer anything to the ECJ, it would be able to formulate its question more precisely and give its own opinion on the questions to be referred. In contrast an ECJ reference, while not necessarily being of any assistance, would definitely cause delay and increase costs.

The IPKat thinks this manifestly sensible. While we all enjoy a good ECJ reference from time to time, we must remember that the ECJ is not just some sort of Brains Trust - it must be invoked only where necessary for the resolution of a dispute. Merpel speculates, though, that it would be nice to establish a sort of legal think-tank for deciding questions for which no-one actually needs the answer: it could be a harmless way of keeping academics occupied during those long, hot summers ...

Above, left: once it finishes with Nova v Mazooma, the next copyright case for the Court of Appeal is the Da Vinci Code appeal.