Original news and analysis on international IP policy
As virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) technologies emerge, so do legal questions arising from their use. While the issues are still mostly hypothetical, they implicate, among other areas, intellectual property rights, lawyers say.
The European Patent Office has a “tradition of looking forwards” to anticipate patenting trends, and it sees the Internet of Things (IoT) as the next challenge, Chief Economist Yann Ménière said at 20 April OxFirst webinar on the office's contribution to the coming world of billions of connected objects.
The Internet of Things (IoT), which will connect billions of devices in coming years, may offer incredible opportunities for businesses and consumers but it also raises significant intellectual property issues, IP lawyers, mobile operators and others say. One key question is whether patenting and licensing strategies will have to change to adapt to the myriad standards being developed and patents being sought for IoT products and services, and for the coming rollout of 5G technologies.
Legislation authorising the president to appoint the Register of Copyright in the United States Copyright Office is working its way through Congress. The “Register of Copyrights Selection and Accountability Act” garnered strong bipartisan support in the House of Representatives Judiciary…
With rumours swirling that European Patent Office President Benoît Battistelli is seeking another term in office, disgruntled staff members called another demonstration today to try to push the office's governing body, which is meeting on 15-16 March, to find a successor. [Further update on meeting outcome now added]
European Commission plans to modernise copyright rules have run into opposition in European Parliament committees, with lawmakers particularly pushing back against the proposal for a publishers' right to licence snippets of news content.
Internet television broadcasting service TVCatchup (TVC) may not offer live streams of free-to-air TV broadcasts without permission, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) said in a 1 March judgment.
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is on an “ambivalent drift” into online content regulation through its contractual facilitation of a “trusted notifier” copyright enforcement program between the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and the registry operators for two new generic top-level domains, University of Idaho College of Law Professor Annemarie Bridy says in a draft article for the Washington & Lee Law Review.
In a case pitting copyright protection against competition, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit must decide whether World Programming Limited (WPL) violated SAS Institute's copyright by copying software interfaces that enable interoperability. WPL has already won the argument in the UK and in Europe's highest court. The case has drawn strong support on both sides from the tech sector and a civil liberties group.
Internet service providers and copyright owners remain deeply divided over the effectiveness of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act safe harbour provisions, they said in additional submissions to a US Copyright Office inquiry.
Search engines Google and Bing have signed a voluntary code of conduct with the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) and the Motion Picture Association to prevent consumers from being directed to copyright-infringing websites, the UK Intellectual Property Office said on 20 February. The deal, brokered by the IPO, comes into effect immediately and is intended to reduce the visibility of infringing content in searches by 1 June, the office said.
In a case pitting standards development organisations against internet content aggregators, a United States federal court ruled that Public.Resource.Org breached copyright by posting unauthorised copies of standards incorporated into government education regulations. Public Resource has appealed.