Bringing you regular news of key developments in intellectual property law.

COPYRIGHT

Football Association Premier League Ltd v British Telecommunications Plc and others [2017] EWHC 480 (Ch)

The High Court has granted an order requiring the UK’s six largest ISPs to block access to streaming servers providing unauthorised access to footage of Premier League matches. This is the first time such an order, granted under section 97A of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, has been made in respect of streaming servers. The order is also novel in its time limited nature. This decision represents a further application of the blocking order which enhances its effectiveness as a tool in the ongoing battle against copyright infringement.

For the full text of the decision, please click here.

DESIGNS

Nintendo Co Ltd v BigBen Interactive GmbH, joined cases C-24/16 and C-25/16

Advocate General Bot has provided his opinion on a Community designs case referred by the German courts to the CJEU for a preliminary ruling. The case concerned the sale of accessories manufactured by the Defendants which are compatible with the Nintendo Wii games console.

In his opinion, the Advocate General considered the interpretation of “acts of reproduction for the purpose of making citations”, which do not amount to acts of infringement under the Community Designs Regulation. The Advocate General was of the view that the concept of “citations” should be interpreted broadly and includes use by a third party of images of goods incorporating protected Community designs for the purpose of selling its own goods. The Advocate General also considered a number of other issues related to the applicable law of the proceedings and the enforceability of a national judgment.

For the full text of the decision, please click here.

TRADE MARKS

IR v EUIPO - Pirelli Tyre (popchrono) [2017] EUECJ T-132/15

The EU General Court has dismissed an appeal against a decision of the EUIPO Board of Appeal upholding the revocation of the EU trade mark POPCHRONO registered for vehicle apparatus on the ground of lack of genuine use.

The Court held that evidence of proposals to enter into negotiations on a trade mark licence agreement merely showed an intention to propose the agreement and did not demonstrate genuine use of the mark by placing goods covered by the mark on the market.

For the full text of the decision, please click here.

Apple Inc v Arcadia Trading Ltd [2017] EWHC 440 (Ch)

The High Court has dismissed an appeal brought by Apple against the UKIPO’s refusal to allow the registration of the word mark “IWATCH” for a number of goods and services in Class 9, including computers, computer software and hardware. The High Court agreed with the hearing officer’s finding that that the mark was descriptive of the goods and found that the mark had not acquired distinctiveness.

For the full text of the decision, please click here.