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Thursday update...

By Johanna Gibson, David Pearce, Jeremy Phillips and Ilanah Simon.

From France (via the BBC's website) reaches us the news that the French National Assembly has today rejected to adopt the 'HADOPI' legislation by a 21 to 15 vote . The controversial new law would have would cut off the internet access of copyright infringing illegal down loaders (also see the IPKat's earlier post here). It appears that an amended version of the HADOPI loi will now go before the French parliament in the next few weeks.

To read the French National Assembly's decision, please click here.

The IPKat has received numerous e-mails after posting information on the 'The Patents, Trade Marks and Designs (Address for Service) Rules 2009 (SI 2009/546)', which came into force on 6 April 2009 (see the IPKat's earlier post here).

A closer look at the "Policy background" chapter of the explanatory memorandum reveals the motivation behind the new rules - and will hopefully reassure some of our readers:

"The ... aim of these changes is to avoid the existing Rules being referred to the European Court of Justice by the European Commission. The Commission has expressed the opinion that the current rules limiting choice to a UK address amount to a restriction of the freedom to provide services as enshrined in Article 49 of the EC Treaty. The Commission has argued that, by not allowing a trade mark agent legally established in another member state to temporarily provide services in the United Kingdom unless he or she has an address in the UK for the purposes of notifying documents, the existing rules are in conflict with Article 49, which gives service providers based in one EU Member State the freedom to provide services in another. Challenges to similar legislation in other EU Member States before the European Court of Justice have been successful and have led to such restrictions being removed."

Full post as published by IPKat on April 09, 2009 (boomark / email).