Sunday surprises

Monday blues? Never with The IPKat!

Tomorrow is Monday ... Do you feel a bit blue? You shouldn't! Here's a lot of exciting events and news for the IPKat readers!

Events

Copyright and the Court of Justice of the European Union - On 26 March IPKat team member Eleonora is organizing a panel discussion on the role of the highest EU court in the field of copyright, on the occasion of the launch of her new book. The event, which will take place at the London offices of Bird&Bird, is fully booked. If you have signed up and are unable to attend, please let Eleonora know through Eventbrite here.

Get Ready for Retromark: the conference - Our Retromark event, brought to you by The IPKat and Katfriend Darren Meale is officially fully booked for Wednesday 27 March starting at 2pm at Simmons & Simmons’ London office in Moorgate. If you are signed up but can’t now make it, please update your booking through Eventbrite so that others may come along. We look forward to seeing you there!

Into patents? - The International Society for Patent Information Professionals invites those who have a professional, scientific, or technical interest in patents and represent companies, law firms, universities, search firms, government agencies or are independent patent information professionals to travel to Alexandria, Virginia for the PIUG annual conference on 4-9 May 2019. For a full list of speakers, please see the conference program here. To register check here.

Call for papers 

Lancashire Law School and the School of Journalism, Media and Performance, University of Lancashire invite our reader to the conference "The Present and Future of Music Law and Practice" on 1 July 2019 at the University of Central Lancashire. Keynote speakers and panelists include Ann Harrison (Music: The Business), Peter Hook (New Order) and Jules O’Riordan (Judge Jules). In the framework of the conference a call for papers is organized. Interested participants should submit an abstract of approximately 500 words to Glen Woodroffe (gwoodroffe@uclan.ac.uk), copying in Tony Rigg (trigg@uclan.ac.uk). The deadline for abstracts is 5:00pm (UK time) on Wednesday 15 May 2019.

Post-doc opportunities

The Centre for Advanced Studies in Biomedical Innovation Law (CeBIL), Faculty of Law, University of Copenhagen, is seeking to appoint a postdoctoral researcher for a fully funded three (3)-year period. The closing date for applications is 29 March 2019, 23:59 GMT +1.The successful candidate can commence on 1 July 2019 or as soon as possible thereafter. More info can be found here.

Publications

The Intellectual Property Office (IPO) has produced a new Trade Mark Guide to improve shared understanding between trade mark experts and those undertaking or using trade mark research. The latest edition of Trade Mark Guide is available here.

Liege competition and innovation institute reports on a new publication on standards and competition in the ICT industry in "Annales des Mines": Axel Gautier and Justine Bulkaert published a brief article discussing standards and competition in the ICT industry in the issue on “standardising the numeric” of the review Annales des Mines. For more information, click here.

The European Patent Office (EPO) has published a new press release concerning the growing number of patent application in 2018. For the full press release, check here. 
 

Opinions 

Following the Opinion of the Advocate General in Pelham in December 2018, the European Copyright Society has reworked its opinion. The text of the opinion can be found here and has also been published on IIC (Springer) here. Here's the abstract:

This Opinion from the European Copyright Society (ECS) discusses the legal boundaries of the use of sound sampling under copyright law in the context of the currently pending CJEU case 476/17 (Pelham GmbH v Hütter). The ECS recommends a careful interpretation of the scope of the phonogram producer‘s right. In the absence of any threshold or condition for protection, this right will extend to cover minimal parts of phonograms and will exceed the protection offered to works in copyright law. Sampling should only be covered by the phonogram producer‘s rights where it significantly prejudices the economic interests of the right holder. The ECS also argues that the quotation exception in Article 5(3)(d) Infosoc Directive should apply to sound sampling, even where it is not evident to the listener that another person’s work or subject matter is being used in the form of a sound sample. However, such use requires that the source, including the author's name, should be given in the description of the work. In this regard, the ECS reiterates the duty of the CJEU to interpret the provisions of EU Directives in a manner that ensures compatibility with the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, especially the freedom of the arts (Art 13) and the freedom of expression and information (Art 11). In the introduction below, Advocate General Szpunar’s Opinion (which takes a very different view on the issues referred by the national court) is also briefly considered.

Update from Greece

Katfriend Yannos Paramythiotis sends IPKat readers the following update on the recently established administrative copyright enforcement system in Greece [previous episodes here]:

The Greek Copyright Office has just launched an online copyright works timestamping service. Authors of any copyright work can create an online account and register their works to obtain a time stamp certificate. The purpose of the time stamp is to increase legal certainty and to be used as evidence in court, in case of copyright disputes. It certifies the date of existence of the work under the specific form, contained in the uploaded file. However, it does not constitute proof of originality or copyright protection in general nor is it a prerequisite for such protection. Moreover, it does not constitute proof of authorship although it can be a strong indication. The new online service can be used as an alternative to “traditional” time stamping methods, such as submission to a notary public or mailing the work to oneself and keeping the envelope with the mail stamp unopened. The works can be submitted in any type of digital file. After submission the user is asked to download and store a .zip file containing the timestamped work. The platform does not store the works in its database. This means that in case the user wants to use the time stamp, he must “verify” the timestamp, by uploading the stored and unaltered files on the platform again. The fees due to the Greek Copyright Office depend on the size of the uploaded digital file: 0 to 3 MB: 10€ | 10 to 40 MΒ: 35€ | 50 MB to 2 GB: 70€ | Verification: 100€ [VAT not included].