Way more than an everyday interest in IP
In 2010 the full court of the Federal Court of Australia overturned a damages award in the VIOXX class action. The decision confirmed the traditional approach to issues of causation – the defendant’s act or omission must be a necessary condition of the plaintiff’s injury (the ‘but for’ test). It also illustrated that causation is no less difficult to prove in large-scale class actions than in individual proceedings.
Who could forget the 2006 FIFA World Cup match when fans of the Netherlands were forced to remove their lederhosen, covered with Bavaria Brewery’s branding, because Budweiser was the official beer sponsor of the event? In a recent letter to ad and media agencies, the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) has warned that it will be equally unrelenting in an effort to protect the rights of its official sponsors.
On June 26, WIPO and its member states concluded a long-negotiated treaty providing audio-visual performers (eg actors) with moral rights over their work. However, it is not yet clear whether this will give performers the control over their work that many would like.
On 15 May 2012 the High Court refused special leave to appeal from the decision of the Full Federal Court to refuse to award damages in the Vioxx class action. The representative applicant alleged that arthritis drug Vioxx caused his heart attack, but the courts disagreed. After the High Court’s decision, the traditional approach to issues of causation stands (the “but for” test). That said, the Chief Justice’s remarks in refusing special leave open the possibility that the High Court might relax the requirements of causation if it is given the right set of facts.
We previously posted (an inordinate number of times, see here), about the trade mark dispute between the Heart Attack Grill (HAG) and the 2nd Ave Deli (Deli), over the Deli’s offering of an Instan read more…
Advocate General Cruz Villalón of the European Court of Justice has recently provided advice to the English Court of Appeal on where acts of “extraction” and “re-utilisation” take place over the internet, for the purpose of determining whether a sui generis database right has been infringed. The Advocate General’s judgment may be found here: read more…
In a rare moment of consensus in Europe, last week EU member states agreed to create a Unitary Patent Central Court accompanied by two sector specific Courts.
Paris will host the central division of the unitary patent court, while mechanical engineering cases will be heard in Munich and chemistry and human necessities (including pharmaceutical cases) will be heard in London.