Around the IP blogs

What’s going on around the IP blogosphere of late:

It's time for Africa!

USA: Fox Television Stations, Inc. v. AereoKiller, LLC, United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit, No. 15-56420, 21 March 2017

Kluwer Copyright Blog updates on the ruling that reversed the decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco which found FilmOn X, LLC, to be a “cable system” that was eligible for compulsory licenses under the Copyright Act. The court held that a service that captures copyrighted works broadcast over the air, and then retransmits them to paying subscribers over the Internet without the consent of the copyright holders, is not a “cable system” eligible for a compulsory license.

.Africa Arrives Today - Own The Continent

Afro-IP announces the sunrise period of .Africa in which trademark owners can secure domain names matching their registered trademarks before the new dotAfrica generic Top Level Domain (gTLD) is launched to the public on the 4^th July 2017.

Preparing for the Unified/Unitary Patent

SOLO IP keeps us in the loop on all things related to the "European Patent with Unitary Effect" otherwise known as a Unitary Patent (UP) such as several upcoming events ( e.g. CIPA webinars and AIPPI panel debate), their main concerns and where to go to keep up to date on the process ( BristowsUPC and the official Unified Patent Court site).

UB3: Uber's New Patent Purchase Program

Talking of patents, on IP Finance, Uber has launched a patent purchase program called, UB3. Uber’s press release explains the benefits of the program: “Sellers will submit patent family details and a price they are willing to accept directly into our submission portal. By eliminating price negotiations and providing quick reviews, UP3 will reduce the total transaction time compared to a typical patent transaction.”

Riding on the coat-tails of Pandora – what is acceptable in Denmark?

Kluwer Trade Mark blog informs us of a recent case before the Maritime and Commercial High Court in which jewellery chain Pandora sued a former business partner, Mr Nielsen, and his company for unlawful use of the trademark PANDORA. The court found in favour of Pandora, stating that Nielsen and his company had taking unfair advantage of their reputation and continuously infringed their trade mark. The court therefore ordered compensation and damages for a grand total of DKK 50,000 (Euro 6,700)… 

CopyKat

Over on the 1709 blog is the latest copykat update which includes an insight to the potential mismanagement of the US Copyright Office, the use of the “Soft Kitty” song in TV show The Big Bang Theory, and Collecting Societies working together to create a new system using blockchain technology.

Glass half-empty for Jagermeister

CLASS 99 (Designs) discusses the recent Case T-16/16 Mast-Jägermeister v EUIPO (beakers), in which Jagermeister’s design containing a picture of a beaker, with a bottle also present, was rejected as the bottles and beakers fell into different classes. After some seemingly unsuccessful back-and-forth, the Examiner withheld a filing date until the satisfactory representations were filed. Jagermeister argued that there should only be an issue where the design cannot be clearly seen in the representations as filed, not when you can clearly see one or more but can't tell precisely which is claimed. However, the court disagreed, stating that the design must be of a quality permitting all the details of the matter for which protection is sought to be clearly distinguished.

Photo credit:  Steven Tan