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Month: May 2018

Russian Supreme Court decided to retain obligatory motivational part in courts’ decisions for IP cases

February this year the Russian Supreme Court proposed to free Russian judges from reasoning their decisions. The rationale for such decision was the fact that sometimes the parties of case do not require it, or do not attend the court when it considers the case. Motivational part in court’s decision explains why the court made its decision, which legal norms it has applied.

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Russian internet includes only .ru and .su domain extensions

Internet is borderless, but national legislation is not. Under Russian law certain types of advertisement is forbidden for dissemination, including in Internet. Not all web-sites comply with requirements for ads. Therefore Russian authorities have rights to require restriction of access in a case if ad legislation is violated in relation to certain ad.

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Experts disliked Russian RKN’s draft order on web-site identification for blocking purposes

Experts from Russian government believes Russian internet watchdog Roskomnadzor extends its authority by means of proposed draft order. They believe the draft order is to be rewritten; the draft provides Roskomnadzor with authority to restrict access to any web-site at its own discretion. But Roskomnadzor believes it has proposed the suitable draft of order – it is necessary to fix failures made by courts in their decisions and other documents made by relevant authorities or officers.

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Idea that was found first in nature is not a protectable element

Wyland (left) v Folkens (right)

The plaintiff alleged that the defendant infringed on his pen and ink depiction of two dolphins crossing underwater. Applying the objective extrinsic test for substantial similarity, the panel held that the only area of commonality between the parties’ works was an element first found in nature, expressing ideas that nature has already expressed for all, a court need not permit the case to go to a trier of fact.

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SWD IA on EU copyright modernisation – baseline and first option for out-of-commerce works in the collections of cultural heritage institutions

Baseline

No policy intervention. CHIs would continue to rely mainly on individual licensing, or collective licensing where possible. Collective licensing would be supported by national legal mechanisms to cover the rights of outsiders only in a limited number of MS. Licences resulting from these mechanisms would be limited to one national territory. The 2011 MoU would continue to call on MS to adopt such mechanisms for books and learned journals, and to provide a basis for further collective licences for this category of works.

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Third edition of USA copyright office compendium – what is a computer program

The Copyright Act defines a “computer program” as “a set of statements or instructions to be used directly or indirectly in a computer in order to bring about a certain result.” A claim to copyright in a computer program may be based on the authorship “expressed in words, numbers, or other verbal or numerical symbols or indicia,” regardless of whether that expression has been fixed in tapes, disks, cards, or any other tangible medium of expression.

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Technical aspects of text and data mining research in copyright directive

A new very useful research, requested by policy department for citizens’ rights and constitutional affairs, has been published. The author of research, Eleonora Rosati, has briefly but informative and understandable way outlined the main issues with text and data mining exception to copyright. The entire research available here, below some technical points of exception – its three steps.

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The matter of proper licensing: ABKCO Music v Sagan

This copyright infringement case concerns a collection of live audio and audiovisual recordings of iconic songs that were recorded while being performed live in concert and thereafter acquired by defendants William E. Sagan, Bill Graham Archives, LLC, and Norton, LLC, from the late Bill Graham and operators of other concert venues. The collection primarily consists of recordings made from the 1960s to the 2000s.

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Russian minister of education instructed to check all scientific works of ministry executives on plagiarism

The Russian minister of education, Olga Vasilievna, made this decision when one of her deputies has been accused of plagiarism. The most interesting is that this decision is not made officially. One of her executives has received instruction to check scientific works, but this instruction has been made without terms for its execution.

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