The effect of the European Court of Justice’s ruling in McFadden v Sony appears to be that providers of free wifi will need to password protect their services and require users to identify themselves if they wish to avoid liability (C-484/14).  See our IP PSC Rachel Montagnon’s commentary on this decision in PLC Magazine’s October 2016 … Read more

In their article for PLC Magazine (October 2016), Joel Smith and Jessica Welborn discuss the continued importance of the consistent and effective protection of trade secrets for businesses operating across Europe post-Brexit and the impact the new Trade Secrets Directive, even in the post-Brexit era. Read more

In a further key decision on hyperlinking and copyright, the CJEU has held that creating hyperlinks may be a communication to the public and so may amount to copyright infringement, if the creator of the hyperlinks knows or should have known that the material to which they are linking has been posted without the copyright … Read more

In her Editorial for the Journal of Intellectual Property Law and Practice, Rachel Montagnon (our IP professional support consultant) discusses the changes introduced by the  Trade Secrets Directive (Directive (EU) 2016/943) from a UK perspective, evaluating the potential effects of Brexit on its implementation and arguing in favour of a consistent approach to its interpretation and … Read more

Section 52 Copyright Designs & Patents Act 1988 provided for a reduced term of copyright protection for artistic works which had been industrially manufactured, that is over 50 articles have been made.  The reduced term granted was 25 years from first marketing.  Read more

The Court of Appeal has confirmed that the English courts have jurisdiction to make blocking orders against internet service providers ("ISPs") in the trade mark context, as well as in respect of copyright works. In Cartier, Montblanc and Richemont v BSkyB, BT, TalkTalk, EE and Virgin [2016], the Court of Appeal on 6 July 2016 … Read more

Our regular patent and pharma update aims to keep you informed of recent developments in United Kingdom and European law relating to patents and the pharmaceutical industry. Read more

A recent High Court decision decided that an App, fanatix, which enabled users to use screen capture technology to make clips of sporting broadcasts of up to 8 seconds long and upload them for sharing was an infringement of the reproduction and making available rights of the copyright owner in the TV broadcasts and films … Read more