Never Too Late: If you missed the IPKat last week!

If you were too busy to keep up with the IPKat last week, then join this Kat in catching up on some IP news!

Patents

Gif by Riana Harvey

Katfriend Federico Caruso (SIB LEX) discussed a recent ruling by the Munich Local Division of the Unified Patent Court in Syngenta v Sumi Agro. The claimant argued that the defendant had infringed its patent on “Elumis” by developing and marketing a similar product under the name “Kagura” both within and outside the Contracting Member States (CMS). While the defendant contended that the products sold in the CMS differed from those sold outside, and thus from the claimant’s product, the fact that both were marketed under the same brand name (i.e., Kagura) raised concerns. The Court suspected that the defendant might start selling the products sold outside the CMS within the CMS in the future. And as a result, a preliminary injunction was granted, ordering the defendant to stop producing and advertising Kagura within the CMS.

Trade Marks

Marcel Pemsel commented on the EU General Court’s latest decisions regarding the distinctiveness of colour combination marks (cases T-361/23 to T-364/23). The Court stated that the limited availability of colours must be considered not only for colour and colour combination marks, but also for colour combination position marks. In this instance, the widespread use of the colours in question (i.e., red, yellow, and black) in the agricultural sector both for advertisement, and safety and signalling purposes prevented the arguably specific combination from serving as an indicator of commercial origin for certain goods and services.

Copyright

Eleonora Rosati examined the recent decision of the District Court of Hamburg concerning the text and data mining (TDM) exceptions under the EU’s Digital Single Market Directive, and emphasised several problematic aspects of the judgement. The Court ruled that LAION could benefit from the TDM exception for scientific research. Although the decision provided some guidance on the relation between TDM and AI training; failing to distinguish between research conducted for commercial and non-commercial purposes, treating TDM as a blanket provision that permits training AI models with copyrighted materials, and equating “lawful access” with “public accessibility” are argued to “unduly simplify” the role and scope of the TDM exceptions. This simplification inevitably makes it necessary to further clarify the proper relationship between TDM and AI training.

Book Review

This Kat reviewed the book The Routledge Companion to Copyright and Creativity in the 21st Century, edited by Michell Bogre (Parsons School of Design at The New School) and Nancy Wolff (Cowan, DeBaets, Abrahams and Sheppard, LLP). The book’s numerous authors and interviewees explore the current and emerging threats and challenges faced by authors in the 21st century due to technological developments, and assess whether the US copyright law is adequately equipped to address these challenges.

Events, News, and Opportunities

Eleonora Rosati notified The IPKat readers about a variety of events, news, and opportunities. Upcoming events include a lecture titled “New Technologies and the EU: The Role of the Court of Justice” by M. Maciej Szpunar at Universidade Católica Portuguesa in Lisbon, a webinar to be organised by the Swedish Copyright Society on the harmonization of European copyright law, several evening seminars to be held by the University of Cambridge’s Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Law, and a webinar titled “IP and Startups: What, Why, How” by the 4iP Council. Additionally, she informed about a report provided by a former InternKat, Eleanor Wilson (Mishcon de Reya LLP), on IPSoc’s event, “The UPC One Year On: What Do We Know Now?”. The two opportunities of this week are a postdoctoral researcher position in competition law and digital regulation at Tilburg University, as well as a fellowship opportunity with the Thomas Edison Innovation Law and Policy Fellowship programme. Finally, this week’s IP news include a German court’s decision in which three defendants were found guilty of commercial gang fraud for sending misleading invoices to EUIPO customers, and the US Copyright Office’s new initiative aimed at increasing access to materials in Spanish. For details and further events, do not forget to have a look at our PermaKat’s posts here and here. And if you have not done so already, do not forget to mark 30 October 2024 in your diaries for our own webinar, "Image Rights in the Age of AI: Less is More or More is Better?"!