Intellectual Property Law

US Air Force takes off for cyberspace

Posted on January 14, 2008
It will be no surprise to those who know me that my eye was caught by an astonishing report on the Computing site, about the US Air Force setting up a unit dedicated to "both offensive and defensive cyberspace operations".  Led by a 2-star general no less, it is reported that the unit will (rather ominously) "co-ordinate with physical armed forces in order to target and attack those enemies with a hostile presence in cyberspace"...

Model behaviour: ICO issues draft model publication scheme

Posted on January 11, 2008
In mid-December 2007 the Information Commissioner's Office issued a new draft model Freedom of Information publication scheme. The ICO states in its press release that it aims to publish the final version in June 2008, so that public authorities can adopt it as their own publication schemes...

Preparing for the .ASIA landrush

Posted on January 11, 2008
The 'landrush' period for the new .ASIA domain begins on 20 February, ending on 12 March 2008. During this period anyone can apply for a .ASIA domain name can do so, with any domain name receiving multiple applications being auctioned between those that applied...

UK gov launches copyright exemptions consultation

Posted on January 09, 2008
In a widely reported development, the UK government, through the UK Intellectual Property Office, has launched a consultation on reforming the exemptions given under the Copyright Designs & Patent Act 1988. If you want a translation of the above from IP-legalese into English, look no further than the introduction to the consultation by Lord Triesman...

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?The Telephone Gambit? Casts Shadows on Legacy of Alexander Graham Bell

Posted on January 07, 2008
Telecommunications Industry News brings us news of what sounds like a fascinating book: "In The Telephone Gambit: Chasing Alexander Graham Bell?s Secret, journalist, Seth Shulman argues that Bell ? with the help of aggressive lawyers and a corrupt patent examiner ? improperly accessed patent documents that Gray had filed, then falsely claimed credit for the invention...

Introducing Certified Open

Posted on January 04, 2008
Just a quick post to notify you of an emerging standard that could prove equally important for both IT purchasers and suppliers. Certified Open is a new standard for software, designed to promote fair competition in the IT industry that I learned about at the Open Source Summit in November 2007...

The day the music died: US record industry sues man for ripping own CDs to computer

Posted on January 03, 2008
From The Register and IPKat comes the news that the Record Industry Association of America (RIAA) is suing a man for ripping music CDs to his computer. The allegation isn't that the defendant, one Jeffrey Howell of Arizona, distributed the resulting 2,000 music files on the internet...

Data protection - more signs of unrest

Posted on January 03, 2008
More today on the increasingly militant climate on data protection - this time, says the Times online, it's MP's calling for tougher, criminal sanctions for breaches of data security - like the recent debacle at HMRC. What's that, you cry - our MP's calling for penalties which could be applied to them if they ever attain ministerial rank ? How noble, though cynics may ask whether these are the same MP's who recently claimed credit for the Freedom of Information Act while seeking to exempt themselves from its more tiresome provisions...

Playing favourites - branding in action

Posted on January 03, 2008
We at IMPACT® are very interested in branding matters, and were therefore drawn to an item spotted in the run-up to Christmas on the Channel Register site.  This describes the use of a brand name which has enjoyed a premium in one market being used in a different territory to "trawl for bottom feeders", and thereby protect the profile of another - and clearly more cherished - brand owned by the same proprietor...

Data protection breaches blog launched

Posted on January 02, 2008
Nicely linking into Deryck's previous post and comment that data protection is now a matter of public interest, information security company Trusted Toolkit has launched BreachBlog. This blog, which launched in November 2007, brings headline details of data protection breaches from around the world, and names the organisations responsible...

Gym operators pick bad time to be found unfit in DP department

Posted on January 02, 2008
Data protection is a hot topic.  The public certainly thinks so now, and the media have definitely picked up on this.  If further proof were needed, a report on the Manchester Evening News site today provides it. The report reveals that personal data on "more than a thousand" women (it was a women's gym - double whammy) were stuffed in a bin bag and dumped outside for collection with the rest of the garbage...

Ringing in the New Year: IMPACT recommendations for 2008

Posted on January 02, 2008
Happy New Year to all readers! With the day-to-day grind of work about to begin again, it's easy just to keep your head down and get on with the work. However, this is a great time to look at new sources of information to improve your know-how, and new ways of getting that information...

Christmas day e-commerce bonanza

Posted on December 31, 2007
25 December 2007 was the day when the British collectively said thanks for the presents, and promptly went online to buy more stuff. The Telegraph reports than 1 person in 13 in the UK bought something online on Christmas day. The total Christmas Day online spend in the UK was a whopping £84 million, by 4...

Compo for HMRC Data Breach - no sure thing

Posted on December 31, 2007
I was interested to read an item published by the Newcastle Sunday Sun on 23 December 2007, which announced the startling news that "The Government is facing a multi-million pound compensation payout to families over the lost child benefit discs blunder"...

Sir Nicholas Pumfrey 1951-2007

Posted on December 31, 2007
It is with real sadness that we note the sudden and un-expected death of Lord Justice Nicholas Pumfrey following a stroke on Christmas Eve. Not only did Nicholas have one of the finest legal minds of his generation, he was also a wonderful human being...

Merry Christmas & a Happy New Year!

Posted on December 20, 2007
There are just under 2 working days left until the Christmas break. With the usual mad rush underway, as clients try to get deals completed with time to spare for last minute shopping, it's time to close the blog until the New Year. Thanks to all who have read and commented on the blog during 2007...

Freedom of Information requests drop during July - September 2007

Posted on December 18, 2007
The Ministry of Justice has recently published statistics on the number of Freedom of Information requests received by central government during the quarter July to September 2007. The statistics indicate a reduction in requests of 8 percent compared with the same period of 2006; 7,580 compared with 8,209...

Changing the subject: Canadian ISP alters web pages

Posted on December 18, 2007
David Harris's Briefblog brings news of Rogers, a Canadian ISP, adding content to the pages of its customers. According to David, at the moment Rogers is only doing this to the pages of customers who it wants to notify about issues with account status such as exceeding usage limit...

2008 predictions: mobile phones replace laptops

Posted on December 17, 2007
Along with various legal and technology experts, Computers & Law magazine asked the lawyers at IMPACT to give their predictions for developments in 2008. Here's my contribution... I believe that the most important new technology trend in 2008 will be the mainstream use of mobile phones for activities that would previously have been done on computers...

The European Patent Convention 2000

Posted on December 13, 2007
The European Patent Convention 2000 (EPC) came into force today. It revises the European Patent Convention 1973 as agreed at the Conference of the Contracting States in Munich from 20 to 29 November 2000. Substantive patent law is predominantly unchanged with the main amendments in Article 54(3) and 54(5)...

International design system opens its doors to UK designers in 2008

Posted on December 12, 2007
A change in the law means that from 1 January 2008, UK businesses will be able to obtain international design registrations. The change also means that people will be able to obtain Community Registered Designs (giving EU-wide protection) through the international design system...

Bluetooth marketing law update

Posted on December 12, 2007
In October, I reported on a change in position on Bluetooth marketing by the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO). The ICO went from regarding Bluetooth marketing as being covered by the Privacy & Electronic Communications Regulations to considering that such marketing was in fact not covered...

Sensible DRM? Nokia's new music service

Posted on December 10, 2007
Digital rights management, better known by its acronym DRM, is a concept that's been unpopular from the start. For the media industry, the big issue with distributing music in the form of digital files was always that there was no way of preventing the punters going and copying the files to their mates...

The end of the European Patent Litigation Agreement?

Posted on December 04, 2007
The IPEG blog quotes patent specialist Jochen Pagenburg on the European Patent Litigation Agreement (EPLA). Pagenburg suggests that, with discussions having been "fruitless" so far, unless there are big movements forward in 2008, discussions on both EPLA and the Community Patent (talks on which EU Commissioner Charlie McCreevy earlier this year described as being "stuck in the mud") might as well be dropped...

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