EUROPEAN UNION Wi-Fi network operators' liability for copyright infringements On 15 September 2016, the CJEU ruled in the Tobias McFadden case that a vendor offering an open free Wi-Fi network to the public cannot be held liable for copyright infringements committed by users of such a Wi-Fi network. Thus, a copyright holder is not entitled to claim damages from the Wi-Fi network operator on the grounds of such infringements (e.g. music downloads, etc.). If, however, the Wi-Fi network is used unlawfully, the Wi-Fi operator may be required by court or administrative order to password-protect its network in order to bring an end to or prevent such infringements. Before obtaining the password, users will be required to reveal their identity and thus will be unable to act anonymously. In such cases the copyright holder shall be entitled to claim reimbursement of costs incurred by giving formal notice and initiating court proceedings against the Wi-Fi operator with the aim of ceasing the infringement. Uber drivers enjoying employee benefits? The London employment tribunal ruled that two Uber drivers were "workers" within the meaning of the Employment Rights Act 1996, rather than self-employed. It means that the two drivers are entitled to a host of employment rights that are not available to selfemployed contractors (such as paid holidays, minimum wage). Uber announced its intention to appeal. This sabotage against the "on-demand" freelance workforce is part of a wider trend; the decision could affect thousands of people working across the gig economy. It is to be expected that organizations with similar arrangements are likely to be subject to a greater scrutiny over employment status. Electronic signatures standardized within EU Since 1 July 2016, the eIDAS Regulation allows individuals, businesses and public administrations across the EU to carry out convenient, secure and legally valid electronic transactions across borders. eIDAS has created standards according to which electronic signatures, qualified digital certificates, electronic seals, timestamps and other proof for authentication mechanisms enable electronic transactions with the same legal weight as transactions performed on paper. ALBANIA AUSTRIA BOSNIA & HERZEGOVINA BULGARIA CROATIA CZECH REPUBLIC HUNGARY POLAND ROMANIA SERBIA SLOVAK REPUBLIC SLOVENIA UKRAINE December 2016 WOLF THEISS INTERNATIONAL IP/IT NEWSTICKER 2 ALBANIA New law on copyright In October 2016, the new Copyright Act entered into force in Albania. The Act grants more competence to the copyright collecting agencies to enable them to better protect authors' rights. Moreover, the Act seeks to improve monitoring of copyright infringements and for that purpose imposes further penalties on the infringers, as well as new obligations on importers, exporters, producers, and users of copyright works. Albanian Directorate on Patents and Trademarks included into the EUIPO Recently, the Albanian Directorate on Patents and Trademarks (ADPT) has become part of the EUIPO search system by entering all national data on trademarks and industrial designs. Since then, more than 21.8 million searches have been performed from 151 different EU countries. AUSTRIA Labelling of adverts in free newspapers The Austrian Supreme Court held, with respect to surreptitious advertising in free newspapers, that announcements, recommendations and other paid advertising contained in newspaper articles shall be marked as "advertisement" or the like unless there is no doubt from its overall arrangement that it is advertorial content. There is no legal basis that free advertisement placed in articles shall be labelled accordingly. Furthermore, in the decision the Court also stated (contrary to the long-standing case law) that the averagely attentive and critical reader does not consider editorial articles in periodical newspapers as being neutral and objective and understands that they generally reflect the personal opinion of the journalist. Therefore, as long as an averagely attentive and critical reader has no doubt that an article published in a free newspaper is advertorial, no explanatory notes or labelling is required even if the article contains advertorial statements of a commercial character by courtesy. BULGARIA Cybersecurity Strategy In summer 2016, a national cybersecurity strategy called Cyber Resilient Bulgaria 2020 was adopted in Bulgaria. The Strategy assesses risks raised by digitization, highlights the importance of cybersecurity to individuals, businesses and to national security. The Strategy sets a number of objectives aimed at enhancing cybersecurity – from increasing the use of legally acquired, licensed and maintained software and hardware systems to changes in the legal framework to ensure a timely investigation of cybercrimes and an adequate criminal liability. The Strategy's objective is to improve the skills and technical support of authorities involved in the fight against cybercrimes. An important element ALBANIA AUSTRIA BOSNIA & HERZEGOVINA BULGARIA CROATIA CZECH REPUBLIC HUNGARY POLAND ROMANIA SERBIA SLOVAK REPUBLIC SLOVENIA UKRAINE December 2016 WOLF THEISS INTERNATIONAL IP/IT NEWSTICKER 3 thereby is the achievement of a balance between ensuring cybersecurity and safeguarding individuals' rights and freedoms. CROATIA Croatia joins Federated European Patent Register As another step towards integration into the European patent framework, the Croatian State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO) joined the Federated European Patent Register (FEPR) in July 2016. Since then Croatia is one of the European countries sharing information on the legal status of European patents in their validation procedures before national offices. As part of the FEPR, SIPO enables searches of European patents for which a request for registration was filed with SIPO’S Patent Register since 1 January 2008. The searchable FEPR content includes, among others, information on the status of a patent, registration number, patent holder, patent validity and renewal status. Croatian “Pirate King” arrested After the famous torrent website The Pirate Bay was shut down, the Filmovita website became synonymous for hours and hours of free online movies and series streaming in Croatia. Since the content on Filmovita was shared without copyrights, the website ultimately shared The Pirate Bay’s destiny - the holder of the pirate site Filmovita was arrested in October 2016. The media reports that Mr Matej Kalanj, the operator of the pirate website Filmovita, shared content with a market value of HRK 3.9 million (approx. EUR 520,000) through his website. The economic rationale behind the website was trade with advertising space. The so-called “Pirate King” allegedly made HRK 600,000 (approx. EUR 80,000) since 2014 through advertisements. Mr Kalanj faces up to three years of jail for unauthorized use of copyrights and significant damages claims from copyright holders. Croatian authors worried about tax reform Croatia’s Government announced a tax reform which is expected to enter into force in January 2017. Among the novelties of the reform is the payment of health and pension insurance contributions on author agreements. The proposed reform has provoked negative reactions from Croatian artists, journalists and others working on the basis of author agreements, as the new reform will reduce their earnings from author agreements by up to 17.5% as compared to the pre-reform regime. ALBANIA AUSTRIA BOSNIA & HERZEGOVINA BULGARIA CROATIA CZECH REPUBLIC HUNGARY POLAND ROMANIA SERBIA SLOVAK REPUBLIC SLOVENIA UKRAINE December 2016 WOLF THEISS INTERNATIONAL IP/IT NEWSTICKER 4 Collective management of copyright and related rights in Croatia not yet aligned with EU laws Directive 2014/26/EU on collective management of copyright and related rights should have been implemented by EU Member States by 10 April 2016. The Directive provides for improvement of the collective management of copyright and related rights organisations, organisation of alternative dispute resolution procedures for collective management of copyright and related rights disputes and regulation of licensing of rights in musical works for online use. In Croatia, the Directive is to be implemented by Amendments to the Copyright and related rights act which, however, have not yet entered into force. CZECH REPUBLIC Copyright fees unlimited? The proposed amendment to the Czech Copyright Act aims to repeal the existing limitation of the total amount of fees paid to collective management organisations. The amendment proposes to replace the limit by new collective negotiation about prices between collective management organisations and representatives of users. The goal of the amendment is to establish a legal limitation on increase of fees if the parties cannot come to an agreement. However the biggest issue is that there is no limitation to the collective negotiation, and collective management organisations interpret the repeal as a chance to unlimitedly increase fees. Broadcasting rights for UEFA Champions League only for O2 TV and Czech TV The Constitutional Court upheld the validity of an interim measure issued a year ago by the Municipal Court in Prague forbidding providers of cable and satellite stations in the Czech Republic from broadcasting the UEFA Champions League. O2 TV bought the broadcasting rights and therefore has territorial exclusivity for most matches. Other broadcast providers, especially UPC, were broadcasting the matches from abroad and therefore O2 decided to defend its investment by requesting the interim measure. UPC filed a constitutional complaint against the interim measure but was not successful. End of arbitration clauses? In recent years, the Czech courts have started invalidating validly concluded arbitration clauses and proclaiming them absolutely void. This affects also domain name disputes which can be (according to the rules of the national domain registry cz.nic) generally settled through arbitration but - according to the courts - such an arbitration clause will not be valid in disputes between entities (and will apply only in disputes vis-à-vis the domain registry). On a related note, effective as of December 2016, arbitration clauses are banned in ALBANIA AUSTRIA BOSNIA & HERZEGOVINA BULGARIA CROATIA CZECH REPUBLIC HUNGARY POLAND ROMANIA SERBIA SLOVAK REPUBLIC SLOVENIA UKRAINE December 2016 WOLF THEISS INTERNATIONAL IP/IT NEWSTICKER 5 credit agreements for consumers; this means that all consumer disputes arising from such agreements can be resolved by regular courts only. T-Mobile fined for not protecting clients' data The Czech Personal Data Protection Office imposed a fine on T-Mobile Czech Republic in an amount of CZK 3.5 million (approx. EUR 130,000) for not adopting sufficient measures to protect personal data of its clients contained in an electronic internal database. As a result, the data has been stolen by an employee. When imposing the fine, the Office took into account that T-Mobile subsequently undertook sufficient rules protecting the clients' personal data. Czech Republic passes restrictive online gambling rules A new Gambling Act was adopted in the Czech Republic establishing a licensed online gaming framework. The new legislation among others envisages that the Ministry of Finance will create and maintain a list of webpages with unauthorized online games (List). Internet connection providers in the territory of the Czech Republic will be obliged to block webpages included on the List and payment service providers will be forbidden to execute payment transactions to or from any payment accounts contained on the List. In this regard, experts point out that these measures are too reminiscent of censorship of the Internet. In addition, the law drops the Czech Republic's prohibition on certain foreign-based operators and allows them to obtain online gambling licenses. Electronic records of sales From December 2016, the Czech Republic has introduced a system of electronic records of cash sales of goods and services (e-sales). Every cash income of an entrepreneur will be recorded via the internet in the central data repository of the Financial Administration at the time of its payment. A unique code for confirmation will be immediately sent back to the entrepreneur to be printed on a bill/receipt. The bill/receipt with the unique code will be used for the follow-up control confirming that the payment was actually reported to the tax administrator. An appropriate device (such as cashier system, cash register, tablet with a printer) will need to be implemented by entrepreneurs. HUNGARY Changes of the Hungarian Royalty Regime From 1 July 2016, Hungary has amended its royalty regime. The new scheme largely follows the requirements of the OECD BEPS Action 5, which allows tax regimes to provide for a preferential rate on IP-related income to the extent it was generated by qualifying expenditure. Newly, the definition of a royalty is limited to profit arising from the license, sale or in- ALBANIA AUSTRIA BOSNIA & HERZEGOVINA BULGARIA CROATIA CZECH REPUBLIC HUNGARY POLAND ROMANIA SERBIA SLOVAK REPUBLIC SLOVENIA UKRAINE December 2016 WOLF THEISS INTERNATIONAL IP/IT NEWSTICKER 6 kind contribution of patents, utility model, plant variety, supplementary protection certificate, software subject to copyright protection, or from classification as a medicine for rare diseases ("exclusive rights"). Royalty also includes the profits arising from sales or provision of services relating to exclusive rights. The above changes mean that the royalty definition refers only to the profit relating to exclusive right and not to the consideration (revenue) relating to the IP as defined by the former legislation. Also, unlike the previous definition, the new royalty definition does not cover revenues relating to trademarks, know-how or IP protected by copyright laws other than software. Rubik's cube in the spotlight Seven Towns, the former owner of the trademark of the world famous Hungarian invention, the Rubik’s cube (invented by Ernő Rubik in 1974), has recently lost its case before the ECJ against the plaintiff, Simba Toys. The dispute was initiated in 2006 by Simba Toys requesting the deletion of the trademark of Seven Towns registered with EUIPO. After two consecutive rulings against Simba Toys by both EUIPO and the Court of Appeal of the EU, the ECJ rendered a favourable decision, creating new grounds for Simba Toys to pursue its claims for the design used exclusively by Seven Towns since 1994. In its ruling, ECJ set out that the trademark for the shape of the Rubik’s Cube (originally registered as a three dimensional cube design) does not sufficiently cover the rotating parts of the cube hidden inside the object, as the mechanics found inside a Rubik's Cube define its uniqueness and function at least as much as its appearance. Consequently, at the time of its registration, Seven Towns should have also applied for the protection of the mechanical parts, which in turn would have made the Rubik's Cube much more unique amongst its similarly shaped competitors selling similar puzzles lacking such elaborate parts inside. Furthermore, the ECJ pointed out that the biggest issue with the registered trademark was that Seven Towns defined it as a "three-dimensional puzzle" and thereby covered a much wider range of possible later trademarks to be registered with similar functions. Therefore, ECJ overturned the previous rulings and referred the case back to the first instance. Increased Scrutiny & Fines by the Data Protection Authority The Hungarian National Data Protection Agency has noticeably increased its activity during recent months and years, manifesting in a higher number of proceedings and significantly higher fines. As Hungarian authorities are hit by severe budget cutbacks, they are forced more and more to focus on fine-relating activities. This is also supported by legislation, as the maximum amount of penalties increased to HUF 20 million (approx. EUR 60,000) from the previous HUF 10 million. A major change in the Hungarian Privacy Act, introduced last year, also introduced binding corporate rules (BCR) into the Hungarian regulatory framework, as well as added an additional burden for data controllers: who are now required to register every ALBANIA AUSTRIA BOSNIA & HERZEGOVINA BULGARIA CROATIA CZECH REPUBLIC HUNGARY POLAND ROMANIA SERBIA SLOVAK REPUBLIC SLOVENIA UKRAINE December 2016 WOLF THEISS INTERNATIONAL IP/IT NEWSTICKER 7 single data breach which, previously was an obligation typically required from telecommunication service providers. The newly added BCRs enable companies to transfer personal data to affiliates established in countries outside the European Economic Region. BCRs, of course, require the prior approval of the National Data Protection Agency, but they are still favourable in comparison to the other option, where every single transfer of personal data requires the prior approval of the NAIH on a case-by-case basis. The approval process is thorough and extensive, but once approved, the added data transfer possibility might just give the edge to those market players who succeeded in its implementation. POLAND The Small Innovation Act On 4 November 2016, the Sejm (Polish Parliament) has accepted the so called Small Innovation Act, meaning an act changing some of the regulations determining the conditions of running an innovative business. The new regulation introduces many changes for businessmen in terms of their innovative businesses. The act includes the abolition of income tax on intellectual property contributed to a company, from 1 January 2017. The provisions also make it possible to deduct patent costs from taxes by small and medium-sized enterprises. Furthermore, the act increases the amount of research and development eligible costs which may be tax deductible. Most parts of the act will become effective on 1 January 2017. A change in the system of calculating fees in terms of national trademarks and industrial designs The Regulation on fees relating to the protection of inventions, utility models, industrial designs, trademarks, geographical indications and topographies of integrated circuits, became effective on 14 October 2016. In terms of trademarks, the change of the fee schedule includes the introduction of a new system for calculating charges in the case of submitting a trademark in one class and not, as the case was up until now, calculating for 3 classes. The application fee for a trademark for goods and services which have been classified in one class, in paper or electronic form, is respectively PLN 450 (approx. EUR 102) and PLN 400 (approx. EUR 91). The system for calculating fees for trademark protection has been unified, and these will now be charged at the same amount (namely PLN 400 / EUR 91) for each goods and services class. In the case of industrial designs, the application fees have been kept at the previous levels, however, the fees for their protection were reduced. ALBANIA AUSTRIA BOSNIA & HERZEGOVINA BULGARIA CROATIA CZECH REPUBLIC HUNGARY POLAND ROMANIA SERBIA SLOVAK REPUBLIC SLOVENIA UKRAINE December 2016 WOLF THEISS INTERNATIONAL IP/IT NEWSTICKER 8 ''MACCOFFEE" trademark dispute On 5 July 2016, the Court of the European Union ruled that a coffee manufacturer from Singapore, Future Enterprises Pte Ltd, is precluded from using the “MACCOFFEE” trademark in the EU for its products. Future Enterprises is a coffee producer and applied for registration of a word trademark “MACCOFFEE” in 2008 at the Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market ("OHIM", currently the European Union Intellectual Property Office, "EUIPO"). The application was accepted in 2010. That same year, McDonald’s International Property Co. Ltd submitted an application to revoke the trademark in question for all goods for which it had been registered and succeeded in 2013. In 2013, EUIPO’s First Board of Appeals rejected Future Enterprise's appeal against this recall decision. Future Enterprises then appealed to the Court of the EU which ultimately confirmed the First Board of Appeals' decision. The Court of the EU decided that the prefixes “Mc” and “Mac” are strongly associated with the McDonald’s company. An additional reason for the prohibition is the fact that the services and products offered by both companies are similar. According to the Court, the “MACCOFFEE” trademark and the protected McDonald's trademarks are similar in a phonetic and conceptual sense. The similarity results from the similar sounding elements “mac” and “mc”. Additionally, the structure of the “MACCOFFEE” trademark is very similar to the structure of the trademarks of the “Mc” family, which combine the prefix “Mc” with the names of food products. SERBIA IP Strategy for 2016 to 2020 A public debate on the draft proposal of the Strategy for Intellectual Property for the period from 2016 to 2020 took place in November 2016The strategy should soon be finally revised and adopted. The strategy aims in further harmonization of national legislation in the field of IP with EU laws and improving IP rights enforcement in Serbia. E-money in Serbia The National Bank of Serbia granted to iPay See d.o.o. the first license for issuance of emoney (substitute for bank notes and coins that is usually used for online payments, payments via mobile phone apps and NFC chip and similar) in Serbia. iPay See d.o.o. is the first electronic money institution licensed to carry out domestic payment transactions (local payments among residents) as opposed to payment services of foreign electronic money institutions (e.g. PayPal) which are, under the current legislation, available only for international payment transactions (international payments and collections). The electronic money issued may be used for the purchase of goods and services in ALBANIA AUSTRIA BOSNIA & HERZEGOVINA BULGARIA CROATIA CZECH REPUBLIC HUNGARY POLAND ROMANIA SERBIA SLOVAK REPUBLIC SLOVENIA UKRAINE December 2016 WOLF THEISS INTERNATIONAL IP/IT NEWSTICKER 9 internet stores of traders with whom iPay See d.o.o. has established cooperation. Also, iPay See d.o.o. is expected to launch no later than early 2017, its digital wallet services that will inter alia create the conditions for making in-store payments. Payments with electronic money can be made not only by citizens but also by entrepreneurs and legal entities. SLOVAK REPUBLIC Broadcasting of Czech TV channels in Slovakia forbidden By way of a preliminary injunction for which the company MAC TV applied in July 2016, the Slovak court banned a cable TV operator Satro from distributing the signal of a number of Czech TV channels of Prima (FTV Prima, Prima family, Prima Cool, Prima ZOOM, Prima MAX a Prima love) in Slovakia. Satro has been doing so without Prima’s consent until now. MAC TV claims that Satro's actions resulted in high damages which the companies will claim in full. eHealth By the end of 2016, the Slovak Health Ministry intends to connect around 1,000 healthcare providers to the eHealth system. By January 2018, all providers must be connected. The Ministry believes that by introducing electronic documentation and prescription, EUR 50-100 million can be saved annually mostly due to the fact that duplicate and fictitious treatment would be significantly limited. e-Government in Slovakia In May 2016, the Act on electronic form of exercising the authority of public organs (eGovernment Act) came into effect in Slovakia. According to the Act, all legal entities are obliged to communicate electronically with public bodies via the central portal www.slovensko.sk by using electronic mail boxes created and activated by the Government Office. Starting on 1 January 2017, all official mail will be delivered solely by electronic means. Each company’s legal representative needs an ID with an activated electronic chip to access the e-inbox and a personal security code that can be obtained at the ID office of the district headquarters of the police or at contact centers of the Slovak Ministry of Internal Affairs. No such obligation, however, arises for individuals, or rather self-employed subjects, for whom this form of communication with public organs is still optional. To inform the companies, the government intends to send all legal entities a paper mail with information about the e-inboxes, and will launch a media campaign. ALBANIA AUSTRIA BOSNIA & HERZEGOVINA BULGARIA CROATIA CZECH REPUBLIC HUNGARY POLAND ROMANIA SERBIA SLOVAK REPUBLIC SLOVENIA UKRAINE December 2016 WOLF THEISS INTERNATIONAL IP/IT NEWSTICKER 10 SLOVENIA New collective management of copyright and related rights act – a step towards more effective and transparent collective management organizations Directive (EU) No. 2014/26 on collective management of copyright and related rights and multi-territorial licensing of rights in musical works for online use in the internal market was transposed into Slovenian law with the new Collective Management of Copyright and Related Rights Act ("Collective Management Act"), which came into force on 22 October 2016. The Collective Management Act aims to ensure that collective management organizations (the "CMOs") act in the best interests of right holders and do not impose on them any obligations that are not objectively necessary for the protection of their rights and interests. The Collective Management Act emphasises the holder's right to freely chose the manner of managing his / her rights. In addition, the Collective Management Act regulates in detail the governance of CMOs, collection and distribution of royalties, determination of tariffs and multi-territorial licensing. Under the Copyright Act, the management of certain copyright and related rights (for works subject to mass uses) is subject to compulsory management of CMOs (e.g. right of communication to the public of non-stage musical works). Any other right holders are free to choose to manage their rights independently or to mandate the management to third persons, i.e. representative, independent management entities or CMOs. Even if the author mandates a CMO, he/she may still authorize non-commercial use of his/her work. Since transparency was recognized as important in the effective collective management of rights, the Collective Management Act imposed strict information duties on CMOs. CMOs must, inter alia, provide right holders with specific information on the distribution of their royalties on a yearly basis. Additionally, certain information must be made accessible to the public on the website of every CMO. One of the main areas of discord in Slovenia – the collection and distribution of royalties – is now comprehensively regulated. CMOs are obliged to collect, manage and distribute royalties with due care. Additionally, CMOs must administer royalties for each type of right separately. Collected royalties may not be subject to bankruptcy or execution over CMO. Moreover, CMOs' rules on the management of royalties must, where feasible and economically justified, enable distribution following the actual use of works. Finally, the Collective Management Act defined and broadened the supervisory powers of the Slovenian Intellectual Property Office (“SIPO”) over the CMOs. SIPO has been granted with a new right to recall members of the management board. ALBANIA AUSTRIA BOSNIA & HERZEGOVINA BULGARIA CROATIA CZECH REPUBLIC HUNGARY POLAND ROMANIA SERBIA SLOVAK REPUBLIC SLOVENIA UKRAINE December 2016 WOLF THEISS INTERNATIONAL IP/IT NEWSTICKER 11 UKRAINE Introduction of IP courts and private executors in Ukraine As part of the judicial reform, specialized courts for lawsuits on IP rights have been introduced in Ukraine. On 2 June 2016 the Parliament adopted the Law on Judicial System and Judges Status, whereby the judicial system of Ukraine was substantially reshaped. In particular, a two-tier IP court system was introduced, while commercial disputes are still considered by the three court instances. Thus, in the first instance the High Court on Intellectual Property will consider copyright, trademark and patent disputes. In the second instance, its decisions will be reviewed by the Supreme Court of Ukraine. The new law stipulates that the High Court on Intellectual Property should be established and start operating by the end of 2017. Such novelty follows the international trend, considering that specialized IP courts function, inter alia, in China France, Germany, Japan, Portugal, United Kingdom and USA. Not only the organizational structure was changed, but the membership of the judges will also be renewed: new judges will be elected to the High Court on Intellectual Property. Ukrainian patent attorneys or lawyers with relevant expertise of more than five years are qualified as candidates for the judge's position. This step should allow the professionals in this sphere to become judges with deep professional expertise. It is expected that the new IP court system will allow IP cases to be dealt with in a much faster and more efficient way, thus better protecting the rights of right holders. Execution of a court decision is a tough job in Ukraine. To felicitate this procedure, new laws on enforcement have been adopted in June 2016. They established the service of private judicial executors, which will assist in the enforcement of court decisions in addition to the existing state executors. It is expected that the private executors start operating in 2017. This novelty will, inter alia, significantly speed-up the execution procedure for court decisions taken in IP lawsuits. Ukrainian e-commerce project to expand to Poland Topmall.ua, the Ukrainian online shop has raised half a million US dollars in 2016. Part of the new financing will be used for the relaunch of Merlin.pl, which was closed by its holders in 2015 due to financial reasons. The track record of Merlin.pl is as follows: it was launched in 1999 and in 2014 became the sixth biggest on-line shop in Poland. It used to sell books, music and films, household products and cosmetics. Using its existing reputation Merlin.pl will allow Topmall.ua to promptly revive the business. The new platform of Merlin.pl has already been developed and a new warehouse constructed to support the Polish e-commerce project of Topmall.ua. ALBANIA AUSTRIA BOSNIA & HERZEGOVINA BULGARIA CROATIA CZECH REPUBLIC HUNGARY POLAND ROMANIA SERBIA SLOVAK REPUBLIC SLOVENIA UKRAINE December 2016 WOLF THEISS INTERNATIONAL IP/IT NEWSTICKER 12 Topmall.ua was initially a Ukrainian fashion e-commerce project, created in 2013. In 2015 it moved its operational team to Poland. US-Ukrainian start up Attendify raised USD 1 million Attendify is an online self-service platform that helps conference, meeting and event planners to create private social networking applications. Thus, it helps companies to increase the number of attendees and provide technical support for the communication aspects of an event. In particular, the Attendify application includes private social networking features, and also captures data around social interactions. This application has been already used by Google, AstraZeneca, Chrysler and AOL. Attendify raised USD 400,000 in 2013 and 2014. In 2016 TMT Investments and Digital Future invested USD 1 million into the promising technology. ALBANIA AUSTRIA BOSNIA & HERZEGOVINA BULGARIA CROATIA CZECH REPUBLIC HUNGARY POLAND ROMANIA SERBIA SLOVAK REPUBLIC SLOVENIA UKRAINE December 2016 WOLF THEISS INTERNATIONAL IP/IT NEWSTICKER 13 About WOLF THEISS Wolf Theiss is one of the leading law firms in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe (CEE/SEE). We have built our reputation on a combination of unrivalled local knowledge and strong international capability. We opened our first office in Vienna almost 60 years ago. Our team now brings together over 340 lawyers from a diverse range of backgrounds, working in offices in 13 countries throughout the CEE/SEE region.
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