Around the IP Blogs

Copyright

Grumpy Cat, one of the world’s most famous cats, passed away in 2019 at the age of seven. Back then, some wise Kats already looked into the IP-implications behind the Grumpy cat’s story. Still, that 2019 post on the IPKat could report on only one court case at the time, in which rights in the Grumpy Cat name and likeness were asserted. It seems that since then, the cat’s owners have put more time and energy into litigating against sellers of products that contain the facial likeness of Grumpy . Last week, the Torren Freak discussed some 13 cases, filed by the Grumpy Cat’s owners in US federal courts, where the plaintiffs are seeking millions of damages for alleged copyright and trade mark infringement.

The ArtNet analysed a recent decision by the Paris Court of Appeal. The lawsuit was filed by a French photographer Frank Davidovici, author of an ad campaign for Naf Naf, which featured a women, lying in the snow, and a pig leaning towards her. In 2015, Davidovici sued a popular artist, Jeff Koons, alleging that Koon’s sculpture, which also consisted of a lying women and a pig in an inclined position, infringed copyright in Davidovici’s work. The Paris Court of Appeal sided with Davidovici and awarded him €190,000 in damages.

Patent

Juve Patent blog reported on three decisions by the Paris Court of Appeal regarding supplementary protection certificates (SPC) for an anti-cancer drug. In these cases, the Paris Court of Appeal applied a recent ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Union in C-650/17, concerning the definition of a product protected by a basic patent in force [see here for The IPKat’s comment of the Advocate’s General opinion in C-650/17].

Designs

The JIPLP Blog commented on the last decision, where the UK courts act in their capacity as a Community Design Court (a capacity no longer vested in them after Brexit). In this case, the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court discussed whether the actual product and a prior patent application were relevant to decide on the scope of the registered design (spoiler alert: in the opinion of the court, only the actual images, included in the registered design, define its scope).

Other

The JIPLP Blog also featured a commentary on the Digital Services Package initiative, advanced in December 2020 by the European Commission. The post addresses competition law aspects of the Digital Markets Act (DMA), one of the three proposals included in the Digital Services Package (together with the Digital Governance Act and the Digital Services Act).

This Kat also came across this wonderful initiative of the SpicyIP Blog to compile IP Books in open access. A valuable resource for the stay-at-home-researchers!