Way more than an everyday interest in IP
In 1985 Madonna set the pop music world alight with her song “Material Girl”. The song captured the materialism of the 1980s and is so associated with Madonna that, even 25 years later, she is still referred to around the world as “the Material Girl”.
It’s a well-known story. Chain-smoking French composer Jacques Morali had a dream for a concept disco group and placed an ad in a magazine reading “Macho Types Wanted: Must Dance And Have A Moustache”. The result can be seen below.
In two previous posts, available here and here, we have chronicled the ongoing dispute between Star Wars creator George Lucas and Andrew Ainsworth. Ainsworth created the original Imperial Stormtrooper uniform and in 2004 he commenced making Stormtrooper costumes again, which he would sell to dedicated Star Wars fans. read more…
Windrige Farm Pty Ltd is the owner of the Wonga Piggery, located near Young, New South Wales. Along with the regular concerns faced by any piggery owner, including disease, environmental problems and the possibility of (former) prime ministerial ownership, there is always the risk of animal rights activists invading the property. Such was the case on 9 July 2006, where Messrs Grassi, Simpson and James trespassed on the piggery to take photos and videos to document the conditions the animals were living in.
In an earlier post on the Whiteboard, we reported a proposal made at the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN, the body that operates the internet domain name system) called the New gTLD program, which would substantially expand the number of general Top-Level Domains (gTLDs) from the current 22, which includes such familiar domains as .com, .org and .net. This would potentially allow entities to create such domain names as <empire.newyork>, <h read more…
In November 2010, UK Prime Minister David Cameron set up an independent review committee, chaired by Professor Ian Hargraves. The aim of this review was to determine if the IP framework that exists in the UK was sufficiently well designed to promote innovation and growth in the UK economy, and if not, to make recommendations as to how it might be improved.
In its recent decision in International Hair Cosmetics Group Pty UK v International Hair Cosmetics Limited [2011] FCA 339, the Federal Court unravelled a tangled mess of a hair dispute between two companies with competing claims over a series of trade marks including AFFINAGE. The Applicant (IHC Aust) was the owner of trade marks for AFFINAGE and AFFINAGE INFINITY. The first Respondent (IHC UK) was the owner of the AFFINAGE trade mark in the UK.
The Full Federal Court has rejected EMI’s appeal of Justice Jacobsen’s decision that Men at Work’s song “Down Under” infringed Larrikin Music’s copyright in “Kookaburra sits in the Old Gum Tree”. EMI will also have to pay Larrrikin’s costs of the appeal.
Regular readers of the IP Whiteboard may recall a post in 2009 about a dispute between Star Wars creator George Lucas and Andrew Ainsworth. Ainsworth created the original Imperial Stormtrooper uniform of white armour which seemed to provide remarkably little protection to any and all weapons, including Ewoks wielding stones. That post is available here.
