Never Too Late: If you missed the IPKat last week!

Been away and want to catch up on last week's IP news? No problem! As always, the IPKat is here to bring you a quick summary --- the 120th edition of Never Too Late.

No worries, IPKat has done the summary for you.

1. Court of Appeal on Pregabalin - Pfizer still in pain, but Swiss claims re-interpreted again

Darren Smyth blogged on the painful decision handed down by the Court of Appeal in the pregabalin appeal. The findings affirmed in the decision are disappointments for Pfizer for sure, and also for some outsiders --- major contentious points are around the Swiss-claims, the intentional use and the ambiguity of the “correct test”. Kindly note, the comment area is also a joy to read. 

2. Procedural fairness and the Penalties Regulation: R(Roche) v Secretary of State for Health

Eibhlin Vardy brings us the second report covering the recent Monckton Chambers' seminar. The main focus was put on the R (Roche Registration Ltd) v Secretary of State for Health [2015] EWCA Civ 1311 case, which considered issues of procedural fairness in the context of Commission Regulation EC No 658/2007 concerning financial penalties for infringement of certain obligations in connection with marketing authorisations.

3. Meet the Trade Mark Judges (Part two)

Rosie Burbidge continues the report of the annual IBIL and MARQUES Meet the Trade Mark Judges event at UCL --- see what questions the trade mark judges got from the audience this time. 

4. AG Szpunar says that the notion of "places accessible to the public against payment of an entrance fee" does not apply to hotel rooms

Are hotel rooms included in the notion of “places accessible to the public against payment of an entrance fee” within the meaning of the Article 8(3) in the Rental and Lending Rights Directive? IPKat Eleonora Rosati blogged on AG Szpunar's negative Opinion on this question, and his emphasis on the need to adopt a dynamic interpretation of legal norms in an up-to-date manner.  

Chairs... died?! Better not mine...

5. Charlie Chaplin won't come back from the dead, neither will Montis' copyright in the Chaplin chair

Mark Schweizer has brought two chairs, i.e., the Charly chair and the Chaplin chair, into readers’ attention. Designed by Mr. Gerard van den Berg in the 1980s, the rights were assigned to Montis Design BV afterwards, then the chairs lost their design and copyright protection in the Benelux in 1993, Montis challenged the Benelux law and argued copyright should have been restored, but after put up a last-ditch struggle at the CJEU their “death” seems final. 

6. Linking to unlicensed content: Swedish court applies GS Media

Ever-productive Eleonora Rosati writes another blog, covering the first national application of GS Media --- the Swedish Attunda District Court’s “fairly strict interpretation” of it in the case against a Belgian media company for providing a link to a video that had been uploaded onto YouTube without the permission of the copyright owner/claimant.

7. Urgent crowd sourcing request-- "ugly" clauses in IP agreements

Neil Wilkof reports an urgent crowd-sourcing request from Alexander Tsoutsanis, which dealt with the “nitty-gritty questions” of legal wording --- specifically regarding the vague and ambiguous clauses in IP agreements, “both of the contentious (i.e. cease-and-desist declarations and settlement agreements) and non-contentious (joint-ventures, licenses and the like) kinds”.

8. How much attention should the IP community give to non-compete clauses?

The prolific writer Neil Wilkof also blogged on non-compete clauses --- on their changing functions since the 1980’s, their relation with correlative IP concerns, and his own concerns that are open for further discussion. 

9. Last but not least, the weekly routines: Friday Fantasies and Around the IPKat’s Cousins Blogs: round-up posts of weekly IP news and highlights from other IP blogs. 

Photos courtesy of Ms. Ana Barbara Ribeiro Ramalho.

PREVIOUSLY ON NEVER TOO LATE

Never Too Late 119 [week ending on Sunday 23 October] | Around the IPKat’s Cousins Blogs | With free trade and globalization under attack, can IP licensing come to the rescue?  | The new French law targeting “automated image referencing services”: does EU law allow it?| Unauthorised communication to the public in an online environment as a criminal offence in the UK?| Friday Fantasies| Meet the Trade Mark Judges (Part One)| HHJ Hacon amplifies the law on EU trade mark jurisdiction: AMS-Neve v Heritage Audio| Launch of IP Pro Bono scheme| Lundbeck v European Commission - a rotten decision or effective competition law enforcement?|  

Never Too Late 118 [week ending on Sunday 16 October] | Rome Court of First Instance rules that copyright exceptions for news reporting and criticism/review do not apply to entertainment TV programmes | It's a gas! The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics | Around the Brexit Blogs and Related Events | Is there a competition law issue lurking on the horizon of cloud computing? | Thursday Thingies | Do declarations of non-infringement work for trade mark litigants? | A close look at survey methodology for proof of acquired distinctiveness | BGH rules for patentees on appeal – again| A croissant-doughnut by any other name| General Court confirms that body-builder silhouette cannot be registered as a trade mark for nutritional supplements| The proposed press publishers' right: is it really worth all this noise? | Servier successful before Henderson J in introducing defence based on the Department of Health's prescribing/reimbursement practices | Can the Curve combat piracy? | Academics stress importance of preserving consistency and integrity of EU framework on content monitoring

Never too late 117 [week ending on Sunday 9 October] | The Commission's DSMS and CJEU case law: what relationship? | Generic marks as valuable commercial information | Other people's computers | Compared to Svensson, GS Media is not that bad after all | Introducing our new InternKats! | C-223/15: no EU-wide confusion, no EU-wide injunction

Never too late 116 [week ending on Sunday 2 October] | Book Review: WTO Dispute Settlement and the TRIPS Agreement | The IPKat team news: new arrivals and farewells | Brexit - who has the power to change UK law? | Book review: Computer Crimes and Digital Investigations | European business urge continued UK involvement in UPC on eve of Competitiveness Council meeting | Wednesday Whimsies | Book review: Global Governance of Intellectual Property in the 21st Century