Around the IP Blogs

Here are the greatest catches from IPKat's latest hunting trip around the blogs.

Copyright

The IP Watchdog wrote about how the Katy Perry decision demonstrates that American copyright law is "out of tune in several ways". Katy Perry is a pop star who, in her smash hit "Dark Horse", was accused of wrongfully using a melody by a Christian rapper named Flame. . The District Court of Central California held that Kate Perry had infringed the copyright of Flame and the jury awarded the plaintiff 2.8 million dollars.

In a series of three cases, the German Federal Supreme Court ruled the destruction of a work does not violate the moral rights of the author. More on Kluwer Copyright Blog.

This Kat is always thinking.

On the 1709 blog, Ken Moon discussed the Court of Appeal for the 2nd Circuit's case of Capitol Records v. ReDigi concerning the exhaustion of the rights of distribution over the Internet. Ken suggested that a statutory licence may be a solution to allow 'second-hand sales' of internet-delivered content

Trademarks

In the TrademarkNow blog, IIianna Soto examined some of the reasons why there is now a growing trend for applicants to submit their Chinese trademark through the CNIPA rather than the WIPO.

Patent

Patently-O reported that a defamation suit, filed by Automated Transactions, LL, a company holding several patents on automatic teller machines (ATMs), against potential licensees who called it a "patent troll", was dismissed by the New Hampshire State Court .The decision has now been affirmed by New Hampshire Supreme Court.

EPLaw Patent blog published Erik Ficks and Fredrik Nilsson's reports on the efficiency and reliability of patent cases adjudicated by the Swedish Patent and Market Court during the first three years since its establishment.

IP & Government Subsidies

As reported by IP Finance, Video Games Tax Relief was introduced by the UK government in 2014 to provide targeted support for “culturally British” video games produced by small and medium sized businesses. Concerns over whether the relief is properly targeting these companies were raised in light of the fact that 19% of the total relief was claimed by a producer of the game, Grand Theft Auto.