Basic Patents

IPR-Helpdesk, a joint venture of the University of Alicante in Spain and the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland, has published a new, short briefing paper on European Patents. The paper addresses patentability, excluded matter, benefits of patent protection and revocation. This is just one of a number of interesting publications of the Helpdesk. Others address patent insurance and the costs of obtaining and maintaining patent protection.

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Copyright in Photographs: Temple Island Collections and Creation Records

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In our very first NIPC newsletter which we published in June 1997 I wrote a case note on Mr. Justice Lloyd's decision in  Creation Records Ltd. and Others v News Group Newspapers Ltd   [1997] EMLR 444, [1997] EWHC Ch 370, (1997) 16 Tr LR 544. In that case Mr. Noel Gallagher of Oasis and others applied for an interlocutory injunction to restrain The Sun from offering for sale and selling a poster of Oasis that featured a photo of an elaborate set that included a white Rolls Royce in a country club swimming pool. The Sun's photograph was very similar to the photograph that appeared on an Oasis album cover. The similarity arose because The Sun's photographer shot the same scene at roughly the same time and from the same angle as Mr. Gallagher's photographer but he did not reproduce any part of Oasis's print or negative. The learned judge held that the plaintiffs had no arguable case for infringement of copyright though he accepted that they had an arguable case for br...
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Copyright: Creation Records Ltd. v News Group

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