Way more than an everyday interest in IP
The Advertising Standards Bureau (ASB) has ruled that recent social media advertising campaigns by Bendon and Mossimo encouraging people to take and upload photographs of themselves in their underwear are in breach of the Advertiser Code of Ethics. Concerns were raised that such promotions could encourage “sexting”. The ASB administers the national system of self-regulation read more…
On 3 September 2012, the Indonesian Government issued a “government use” decree, a type of compulsory licence, in relation to seven patent-protected HIV/AIDS and Hepatitis B medicines in Indonesia. The decree gives the Minister of Health authority to appoint drug companies to exploit patents on behalf of the Government and the authorisation will be effective read more…
IP Australia has released an “Exposure Draft” of the Intellectual Property Laws Amendment Bill 2012 (“Bill”). If enacted, the Bill would introduce a special purpose compulsory licensing system for patented pharmaceuticals, with the aim of helping developing nations deal with health epidemics, such as HIV/AIDS and malaria. There is an existing compulsory license scheme under read more…
Further to our previous post about proposed reforms to the patent law, the Australian Government has announced another review – this time of pharmaceutical patents. The Review Panel consists of Mr Tony Harris (former NSW Auditor General), Prof. Dianne Nicol (Associate Dean of Research, University of Tasmania Faculty of Law) and Dr Nicholas Gruen (CEO, read more…
A hot topic in the patent world is “patent trolling”. Patent trolling loosely refers to the practice of acquiring or applying for multiple patents, especially broad ones, not to exploit the inventions they describe but to pursue others who use the technology. Patent trolls usually employ litigation as a tool to try and profit from read more…
The Federal Government has proposed changes to the innovation patent system, and is seeking public comment. The proposed amendments would require innovation patent applications to demonstrate the same level of inventive step as a standard patent. In 2001, the Patents Act 1990 was amended to create a new lesser class of patents to replace petty patents read more…
State and territory attorneys-general met with Federal Attorney-General Nicola Roxon in Brisbane today to consider the possibility of new national laws to regulate social media. As reported here, the issue has come under scrutiny again following the murder of Jill Meagher in Melbourne, and subsequent pleas by Victoria Police for Facebook to remove content regarding read more…
Since our post on Ms Thomas-Rasset’s case back in 2009 (Capitol Records Inc v Thomas-Rasset) here, the amount in damages that she has been ordered to pay to the major music labels for copyright infringement has changed several times. In the first instance she had been ordered to pay USD$220,000 but the verdict was annulled and a retrial was ordered on the basis the jury had been given faulty instructions.
The creators of ‘Gangnam Style’, the K-Pop video by Korean rapper PSY, which went viral after being released in July, are reportedly facing a trade mark fight in the Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) over rights to the commercial use of the name ‘Gangnam Style’.