Recent publications

The April 2008 issue of London-based law firm Olswang's Internet & E-Commerce Update came out at the tail-end of last week.

Right: an ingenious invention for keeping in touch when the internet is down. The EPO was not available for comment

Among its many and varied contents, IPKat team member Jeremy (who has an IP consultancy with the firm) suggests:

* New marketing regime comes into force in May. New legislation on misleading B2B and B2C marketing comes into force in May. The new regime is broader than existing rules on misleading marketing, and carries criminal penalties. Online businesses should review their marketing practices to ensure they do not fall foul of the new rules.

* Children's online safety: Government and industry urged to step up content monitoring: a government-commissioned report has recommended a range of new measures to control children's exposure to harmful internet content, including the possibility of increased content monitoring and swifter "take down" by website operators. Meanwhile, a bill before the UK parliament proposes that e-tailers and payment providers should take reasonable steps to control online purchases of age restricted goods, and data protection authorities are also turning their attention to the issue of online child protection.

* End-user software licences: is your drafting enforceable? A survey by the National Consumer Council has revealed that many software licences breach consumer protection legislation – making them potentially unenforceable against consumers and vulnerable to enforcement action by the OFT.

You can read it online here or download it in pdf format here


The April 2008 Reports of Patent Cases have hit the news-stands, sort of ... This month's issue contains full text reports on three cases:


* SEI v Ordnance Technologies (see IPKat here),


* RxWorks Ltd v Hunter (see IPKat here) and


* Astron Clinica v Comptroller-General (see IPKat and 26 comments here), plus the UK IPO's practice note from February 2008 on the patentability (or not) of computer programs.


The RPC now has its own home page here