NIPC Law

Author Orphan Wiki   Licence CC BY-SA 3.0   Source Wikipedia Oswaldtwistle Jane Lambert Intellectual Property Enterprise Court (HH Judge Hacon)  Response Clothing Ltd v The Edinburgh Woollen Mill Ltd [2020] EWHC 148 (IPEC) (29 Jan 2020) This was an action for infringement of copyright .  The questions that His Honour Judge Hacon had to decide were whether copyright could subsist in the wave design fabric appearing in Annex 1  to his judgment in Response Clothing Ltd v The Edinburgh Woollen Mill Ltd [2020] EWHC 148 and, if so, whether it had been infringed by the sale of tops made from the fabrics shown in Annexes 3 to 6. The learned judge answered both questions in the affirmative.  By so doing, he boldly departed from the decision of the House of Lords in  George Hensher Ltd v Restawile Upholstery (Lancs) Ltd [1976] AC 64. [1975] RPC 31 and offered his own interpretation of the words "a work of artistic craftsmanship" in s. ...

Jane Lambert Copyright  is defined by s.1 (1) of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 ( "the CDPA" )  as  "a property right" which subsists in accordance with Part I of the Act in original artistic, dramatic, literary and musical work, broadcasts, films and sound recordings and typography. A work in which copyright subsists is known as "a copyright work" pursuant to s.1 (2). The owner of a copyright in a copyright work has the exclusive right to do certain acts that are restricted to the copyright owner (see s.2 (1) CDPA). More importantly, the copyright owner has the exclusive right to prevent others from doing those acts which are often referred to as "restricted acts". There are two categories of restricted acts: Primary Infringement which I discussed in Copyright: What is meant by "Primary Infringement" on 21 Sept 2008; and Secondary Infringement which I discussed in Copyright: What is meant by "Seco...

It is trite law that if two photographers take identical pictures of the same scene at the same time from the same position each of their photographs is an original work and neither infringes the copyright in the other. However, much of the skill of a photographer lies in his choice of subject and the arrangement of the scene. The question whether copyright subsists independently in such an arrangement arose in Creation Records Ltd. v News Group Newspapers Ltd . (1997) The Times 27 April.   The Facts A swimming pool at a country club was drained and various props including a white Rolls Royce motor car assembled for a photograph of a well-known group of musicians for reproduction on their album cover. Although the public was not admitted to the session certain fans of the group who happened to be there were allowed to photograph the scene before official pictures were taken. A freelance photographer who was booked into the club photographed the scene during the session. One of his pict...

This note that I first wrote in 1999 on the decision of Park J in  Christoffer v Poseidon Film Distributors Ltd   [1999] EWHC 262 (Ch), [2000] ECDR 487   discusses  another interesting old case that I have read again while updating the IP/IT Update website.   Three intellectual property issues arose in this case in which 5 separate actions came on for trial before Park J: whether copyright subsists in a film script which was based substantially on Book IX of Homer's Odyssey; if it did, whether it was infringed by making an animated film from the script; and whether the distribution of that film without attributing authorship to the scriptwriters infringed the writers' moral rights. There were many other issues but they were concerned with the fracts rather than the law. The Facts The case arose from a dispute between two Greek Cypriots,  Andrew Christoffer  ( "Mr Christoffer" ), a freelance scriptwriter, and  Frixos Constantine  ( "Mr Constantine" ), a direc...

S. 16 (3) (a) of the  Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988  provides that references in Part I of the Act to the doing of an act restricted by the copyright in a work are to the doing of it in relation to the work as a whole or any  substantial par t of it. The question what is a "substantial part" for the purposes of this Act has been considered by the House of Lords on no less than three occasions. Qualitative Test In  Ladbroke (Football) Ltd. v. William Hill (Football) Ltd.  [1964] 1 W.L.R. 273 their lordships emphasized that the test of substantiality was qualitative rather than quantitative. A case that illustrates that point better than most is  Warwick Film Productions Ltd. v Eisinger  [1969] 1 Ch 508 where the volume of material that had been copied was considerable but such material did not constitute a substantial part of the claimant's work because it had itself been copied from an earlier work. The question then arises, as Lord Hoffmann observed at paragrap...

Jane Lambert 21 Sept 2008   Revised 28 July 2017 S.16 (1) of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 (as amended) provides that the owner of the copyright in a work has in accordance with the provisions of chapter II of the Act has the exclusive right to do the following acts in the United Kingdom: to  copy the work (s.17); to issue copies of the work to the public (s.18); to rent or lend the work to the public (s.18A); to perform, show or play the work in public (s.19); to communicate the work to the public (s. 20); to make an adaptation of the work (s.21) or to any of the above in relation to an adaptation (s. 21); Those acts are known collectively as "acts restricted by the copyright" or "restricted acts" and Copyright in a work is infringed by doing or authorizing another to do, any of those acts without the licence of the copyright owner. References to "doing" an act restricted by the copyright include do...