Parody - it's a Scream; Final JIPLP for 2006

Parody - it's a Scream

The Gowers Review proposes introducing into UK copyright law a variety of fresh defences to an action for copyright infringement, for example that the allegedly infringing copy is a parody, pastiche, caricature or tranformative use. Today is the posthumous birthday of Norwegian artist Edvard Munch, whose painting The Scream (right) has been adapted for the Google search page (below) to mark the event.

The IPKat says that, under UK copyright law as it now stands, since Munch died in 1944 his painting remains in copyright till the very end of 2114 and that Google's version looks very much to him like an arguable copyright infringement (unless Google is licensed by the copyright owner). Merpel adds, under UK law as it now stands the posting of both pictures on this blog is perfectly lawful - which is very nice.


Final JIPLP for 2006

Right: Luxembourg in the snow.European Court of Justice employees are following the tracks of a patent infringement suit, to see whether it crosses the border ...

Issue 13 of the Journal of Intellectual Property Law and Practice (JIPLP), published by Oxford University Press, is now published. Exciting features in this issue include

* The rise and fall of cross-border jurisdiction and remedies in IP disputes: Paul Joseph (Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, London) gives a pithily diagrammatic account of the law in Europe following the recent ECJ decisions, while Marc Döring and Francis van Velsen (Simmons & Simmons) view the same issue from a civil lawyer's perspective;

* Toronto practitioners Ronald E. Dimock and Sangeetha Punniyamoorthy (Dimock Stratton) pick up a familiar theme on the need for equilibrium between the needs of copyright owners and users of their works in the digital age, but give it a freshly Canadian flavour;

Right: no, not that sort of digital balance ...

* Christian Rohnke (academic-cum-White & Case partner, Hamburg) savages the European Commission's approach towards dictating how Microsoft can brand its own products.

Full contents of this issue here
For your free sample issue click here
Guidance for prospective authors here
To read the Editorial ("The Spy Who Came in From the Cold") for this and all earlier issues absolutely free of charge click here