Category:
Branding, Trade Marks, Designs & Patents

19/04/16

Google Books a win: Media giant wins epic copyright battle against Authors Guild

On Monday, a US Supreme Court decision ended an eleven year battle between Google and the US Authors Guild, under which the Authors Guild had claimed Google’s epic book scanning project breached copyright laws by scanning without permission. Google began the scanning process in 2004 with the intention of including extracts in a searchable database. ...

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Trade Mark Vice – Vice Media takes on unsigned indie band ViceVersa

We bring you word of a new trade mark stoush – this time between Vice Media, a company valued at US$2.5 billion, and an unsigned indie band based in LA – ViceVersa. In November last year, the band’s application to have its name trade marked was accepted by the US Patent and Trademark Office. This...

Image rights – the debate continues post mortem

In both Australia and the UK, there is no such thing as an “image right” or “right of privacy” which allows a celebrity to control the use of his or her name or image. This was confirmed by the UK High Court in the Rihanna and Top Shop case[i]. Instead both UK and Australian courts rely...

Not even “Steam” can hide from foreign Consumer Guarantees!

In Australia we have statutory guarantees for consumers under the Australian Consumer Law (ACL) (Consumer Guarantees). These are designed to protect Australian consumers from being sold goods or services which are not of acceptable quality or are not fit for the purpose for which they were sold. Under the ACL, consumers are entitled to a...

Battle of the Giants – Oracle v Google

There have been some new developments in the long running stoush between Google and Oracle. Shortly after acquiring Sun Microsystems in 2010, Oracle sued Google for copyright infringement, accusing Google of copying the Java language APIs (or application programming interfaces) in its Android product. In 2015, Oracle successfully contended that software interfaces (the way software...

Unfair Contract Law Soon to Protect Small Businesses

The law that protects consumers from unfair contract terms will be extended to cover small businesses from 12 November 2016. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) and the Australian Securities Investment Commission (ASIC) delivered a webinar last week which discussed the changes for small businesses. Although the unfair contract law is regulated by ACCC...

Kapow! Court gives protection for the batmobile

On 7 March 2016, DC Comics (‘DC’) ended a long term battle with car designer Mark Towle (‘Towle’) in its fight to secure copyright protection of the Batmobile. The fight began in May 2011 when DC filed action against Towle alleging infringements of its trade mark, copyright and unfair competition claims amongst other things arising...

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