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Book review: Cross-Border Copyright Licensing: Law and Practice

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Copyright is not the simplest of intellectual property rights and when you add licensing to the mix the combination of contract and competition law plus cross border questions can provide complex considerations for even the most experienced practitioner. Cross-Border Copyright Licensing: Law and Practice , edited by Carlo Scollo Lavizzari and Rene Viljoen aims to guide you through some of these complexities, particularly as they relate to China, the EU, India, Mexico, Russia, Singapore, South Africa and the US. The book gives a handy and comprehensive overview of the legal issues to consider when licensing copyright in each territory. This includes the approach of the national courts to important questions such as jurisdiction and choice of law. More practical considerations such as collecting societies are considered as well as related rights such as image rights, moral rights and performers rights. In some cases, other rights such as patents get a special mention, particularly where ...
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Why is this Kat laughing (hint: it's all about his blue shirt)?

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This Kat is usually the reticent type, especially when a camera is pointed in his direction. But this post is the rare exception. To the right, Kat readers will find his picture, proudly wearing his favorite blue shirt. What is this all about? Read on. Earlier this week, this Kat was walking from his office to a meeting site about 25 minutes away. His path took him along the perimeter of a large outdoor bus terminal in Tel-Aviv, home to tens of different lines run by several different companies. About to leave the terminal area, a rather desperate- looking woman approached this Kat and sheepishly asked, �Do you know where I can catch the number 171 bus line�? This Kat has been asked a lot of questions during his life, but this was a new one for him. He looked left and right. On each side there was a digital time schedule for buses serving the terminal; neither schedule showed any information for the number 171. �But�, thought this Kat, �the woman was looking at these same digital...
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Wednesday Whimsies

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IPKat is here with your weekly update of IP news and events!  We begin this week with an update on the pemetrexed (Alimta) Italian patent case between Fresenius Kabi and Eli Lilly. Pemetrexed disodium at the Court of Milan Last year, IPKat  blogged  about the Court of Milan's decision in the pemetrexed (Alimta) patent case (Court of Milan, 12 September 2017, urgent proceedings between Fresenius Kabi and Eli Lilly). That decision has now been fully reversed by a panel of three judges of the same Court of Milan, after having heard the appeal filed by Eli Lilly against the first instance decision. On 15 October 2018, the Court of Milan found that Lilly's patent EP1313508 is infringed by equivalence by Fresenius Kabi's product containing pemetrexed diacid and tromethamine and issued a preliminary injunction against the latter.  Milan In short: the decision contains an in-depth legal assessment, from an Italian perspective, of when prosecution history should (o...
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Buyers beware! �You may owe re-sale right royalties.

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November 2018 is most certainly a good month for the auction house Christie�s. Last week, Christie�s recorded the highest sale for an artwork created by a living artist. � Portrait of An Artist (Pool with Two Figures) � by David Hockney, sold for 90.3 million dollars, beating Jeff Koons� �Balloon Dog� (58.4 million dollars). Two weeks before the record sale, the auction house won a tortuous legal battle over which party has the burden of the re-sale right royalty, ruling in favour of the seller (Christie�s) and thereby overturning the position in place since 1920.  At stake was the [rather fundamental] question: �who owes the re-sale right royalty: seller or buyer?�. This point of law had been agitating the French jurisprudence since 2012, despite a ruling of the CJEU in 2015, against which the French appeal judges subsequently resisted. The French Supreme Court (Cour de Cassation) put an end to all suspense and resistance, stating it was perfectly legal for a contract to stipulate...
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Edible insects: Branding and Innovation

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In her last post on patentable food tech, this Kat considered recent innovations in the field of animal protein substitutes . Whilst the development of meat substitutes for meat lovers is a laudable aim, innovations such as the Impossible Burger are directed at the relatively affluent consumer. The theme of this year's World Food Day was #zerohunger. This is also  Goal 2 of the UN's Sustainable Development Goals, according to whic h "[a] profound change of the global food and agriculture system is needed if we are to nourish the 815 million people who are hungry today and the additional 2 billion people expected to be undernourished by 2050".  This Kat thus turns her attention to another type of meat substitute that has the potential to meet this challenge: edible insects. As highlighted in a  UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) report in 2013 , insect eating (entophagy) has many potential benefits, both for the individual and society. Insects have a high pro...
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Never Too Late: if you missed the IPKat last week!

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Hear ye, hear ye: the 204th edition of Never Too Late is off the press! Patents The big talk of the week was all about FRAND, specifically Unwired Planet v Huawei :  the Court of Appeal  has upheld  Birss J's  decision  from last April, dismissing all three grounds of appeal. The AmeriKat briefly summarised the findings of the Court in   Court of Appeal reaffirms UK as SEP litigation hotspot in upholding Birss J in Unwired Planet ; Kat friends  Jane Mutimear  and  Richard Vary   provided a deeper analysis in    Much Ado About FRAND: What you need to know about today's Court of Appeal Unwired Planet decision ; and finally the AmeriKat shared that AIPPI is organising the following event :  AIPPI UK Rapid Response Event: Unwired Planet v Huawei - 13 November at 6PM .  In her comment   Lord Kitchin applies the "markedly different" infringement approach in Actavis v Eli Lilly in Icescape v Ice-World , InternKat Rose...
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Take your seat at the Bench: an evening with the IP/tech judges

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Instead of sitting on this side of the Court room - whether as a barrister, solicitor, client, or member of the public - have you ever wondered what it would be like to be on the bench? What goes on behind the scenes once the usher closes the door at the end of proceedings? What is the judicial application process in the UK? What are your chances of a successful application if you have a non-traditional background (which in the UK can be taken to mean someone other than a white, male, Oxbridge-educated barrister)? The IPKitten - trying before she buys These questions - and many others - were addressed at Wednesday night's excellent event: "Take your seat at the Bench", organised by ChIPs London Chapter .  The formidable panel of women judges (see below) was introduced by Amy Crouch of host Simmons & Simmons and the discussion moderated with some friendly but pointed questioning from Charlotte May QC.   The panel introduced themselves by explaining their career to da...
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