Monday Miscellany

Coco wrote too many papers this summer 

The IPKat leisurely stalked the IP world all week and found some delicious KatFood for thought.

Events

Evening with UNION-IP

Mr António Campinos, President of the European Patent Office, will be making his first official address to a UK audience on Thursday, 12 September 2019 at the biennial UNION-IP summer drinks reception.  

Venue: The Royal Society, 6-9 Carlton House Terrace, London, SW1Y 5AG
Time:  Welcome drinks from 6pm, further drinks and canapés after the talk. Event concludes at 9pm.

Price: UNION-IP Members & In House Attendees: £43; £58 for non-members

Please book through EventBrite.

IP Summer School

The IP Law Summer School will be held August 12-16 in Cambridge, UK. IPKat readers enjoy a 15% discount in the registration fee, by using the VIP code FKW82944IPKE

ATRIP Congress

The 38th ATRIP Congress will take place in Nashville August 25-28. 

Papers

"Material, Personal and Geographic Scope of Online Intermediaries’ Removal Obligations Beyond Glawischnig-Piesczek, C-18/18 and Defamation", by Eleonora Rosati, is published in European Intellectual Property Review

Abstract: 

In Glawischnig-Piesczek, C-18/18, the CJEU has been asked to provide guidance on the breadth and scope of Article 15 of the E-commerce Directive, and thereby address the removal obligations of an online intermediary (eligible for the hosting safe harbour) as arising from an injunction obtained against it. In his Opinion, AG Szpunar advised that Article 15 does not prohibit a court from ordering an intermediary to seek out and remove all content identical to that found illegal in relation to all users of its platform, as well as content equivalent to that found illegal, though the latter only in relation to the original user/poster. Equivalent information disseminated by other users should be removed when an intermediary becomes aware of it through a notification made by the concerned person, third parties or another source (as Article 14 of the E-commerce Directive in any event envisions). The Opinion also submits that, in principle, a court or authority considering an application for an injunction based on an unharmonized national right might order removal worldwide. 

Like AG Szpunar’s Opinion, this contribution submits that national courts or authorities should undertake close scrutiny when issuing injunctions against intermediaries, envisage time limitations for them, and monitor their effects. This said, the approach recommended in relation to the material and personal scope of removal obligations might be hardly workable in practice without also entailing a general monitoring obligation on the side of the relevant intermediary. In any case, it should be possible for the subject who posted the original information found illegal, users of the services provided by the intermediary targeted by the injunction, and the intermediary alike to intervene to vary or discharge the order issued. In addition, the potential availability of worldwide injunctions based on unharmonized rights – as envisaged in the Opinion – is problematic, also from a policy standpoint. As such, it should be considered extrema ratio. 

The paper can be found here. 

Jobs

Senior researcher and Ph.D. candidate Digital Transformation of Decision-Making At the University of Amsterdam 

The University of Amsterdam is inviting applications for the positions of Senior researcher and Ph.D. candidate to kick-start a new research initiative of the Amsterdam Law School on the Digital Transformation of Decision-Making. The initiative will focus on the normative implications of the shift toward automated decision-making, looking particularly at questions related to data governance and online platforms. It is led by Prof. Natali Helberger, Prof. Joris van Hoboken and Prof. Mireille van Eechoud, at the Institute for Information Law (IViR). It is part of the larger national legal research agenda on Digital Legal Studies (2019-2025). More information can be found here. 

Annual Reports

The 2018 Annual Report of the German Patent and Trade Mark Office (DPMA) has now been published. Full text can be accessed here. 

(photo credit: www.dailydot.com)