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News • IP News This Month
February, 2012
Welcome to CIPP's IP News This Month! Here's your monthly guide to the most important news and trends in intellectual property culled from newspaper and blog reports around the world.
Tips or comments? Send them to jeff.roberts@mcgill.ca
Top 3 Stories
The dramatic failure of the SOPA anti-piracy legislation shows how power in Washington is shifting from Hollywood copyright owners to Silicon Valley tech companies. In the meantime, the international arrests related to the dramatic seizure of file-sharing site Megaupload has raised question of whether new piracy and copyright laws are even necessary.
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The book publishing world is in turmoil as Apple plans to create textbooks and libraries struggle with how copyright laws should apply to e-books. At the same time, authors and publishers are in court over who has the digital rights to old books.
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“An uncommonly well shod” audience attended a New York appeal in which Louboutin asked to overturn a lower court ruling that found red heels can’t be trademarked. The Louis Vuitton case is being followed by IP lawyers and fashionistas alike, and is the newest test of whether companies can own colours.
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Canada
Lego and Canadian toy maker Mega Brands may have settled their trademark dispute once and for all after Lego agreed to stop seeking an import ban of its rivals plastic toy blocks
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Prof Geist warns that the US may use Canada’s introduction of a new copyright law as means to introduce a northern version of SOPA anti-piracy rules
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United States
SCOTUS ruled that removing works from the public domain is not an illegal taking or First Amendment breach; the law reintroduced copyright to long-ago works like Pippi Longstocking
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US law enforcement celebrated Super Bowl weekend in their own special fashion, seizing hundreds of streaming and merchandise websites for copyright violations
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Bankrupt camera maker Kodak hopes an auction of its trove of patents will attract a Nortel-like buying frenzy
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Jay-Z and Beyonce celebrated the birth of Blue Ivy by promptly filing for trademark rights to use her name for diapers and and baby merchandise
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IBM topped the annual list of top patent recipients for the 19th year in a row with 6,180; Microsoft was 6th and Apple 39th
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Pirates are uploading and selling copies of e-books by Amazon’s self-published authors, raising the question of whether Amazon has a duty to stop the practice
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New York rock group the Velvet Underground has gone establishment, suing the Andy Warhol Foundation for using an iconic banana image on iPhone covers
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A controversy over an unauthorized Steve Jobs doll shows that personality rights exist after death in some places but not others
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Microsoft’s new patent for a GPS smartphone app known as “avoid ghetto” has raised questions about racial sensitivity
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Newt Gingrich faces a copyright suit for playing “Eye of the Tiger” at his rallies; he is the latest in a series of Republicans to anger musicians by using their songs without permission
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Almost two years after the Supreme Court’s messy Bilski decision, the Federal Circuit is still refining the law of patentable subject matter for computer inventions
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The WSJ reports that the cream of the patent bar are leaving big law firms to work instead as venture-backed patents trolls
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Europe
The Economist reports on a “Academic Spring” as professors and libraries revolt against the high prices of scholarly journals
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The EU justice commissioner suggested recent US seizures of hundreds of websites in the name of anti-piracy have been overzealous and a threat to internet freedom
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European countries have signed the controversial Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, triggering street protests and hacking; the EU is planning a debate in June
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Bavaria won a copyright ruling to prevent a British publisher issuing an edition of Mein Kampf that contains historical commentary
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Plans to create a pan-European patent court are on hold yet again following a fight between the UK and Germany over where to locate the court
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The impending deportation of a 23-year-old Briton to face US copyright charges is leading the UK question its extradition laws
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International
News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch has a new Twitter account and is using it to rail about Google and piracy
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Australia’s trademark regulator said a snack company could protect its “Nuckin Futs” name, provided the food was not marketed to children
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ACTA is creating a fuss in Europe but has already been signed by the US, Australia, Canada, Japan, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore and South Korea
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