In recent decades commercial marketing has evolved significantly. Part of that evolution is largely related to a specific shift in the way of reaching the customer audience. In this sense, advertising has started to slide away from the grounds of traditional media and is now increasing its focus on the media of the new millennium…Continue reading
Legal protection of designs
The visual appeal of a product plays a key role for its potential commercial success. Brands such as Apple and Alfa Romeo are a clear example how the design of a product can be used to elicit an emotional response from the consumer that could ultimately result in a purchasing decision. All this goes to…Continue reading
Legal protection of databases
Data is the new currency in our contemporary digital era and as such it plays a vital role for the success of every business enterprise. Accordingly, databases are a key infrastructure component of the fast-growing digital economy. They are an important tool that could allow a business to harness and utilize the power of data…Continue reading
A clash of liability in contract and tort in an IPR environment: Case analysis C-666/18 – IT Development SAS v Free Mobile SAS
Back in 2019 the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU, the Court) was faced with a request for a preliminary ruling from the Paris Court of Appeal related to a dispute that arose from an alleged breach of a software licensing agreement. The case (C‑666/18) that was ultimately decided by the CJEU by…Continue reading
Distance contracts under the Consumer Rights Directive /part 2 – the right of withdrawal/
Article 9 of Directive 2011/83/EU on consumer rights (Consumer Rights Directive, CRD) establishes the right of the consumer to withdraw from a distance contract within a period of 14 days and without giving any reason or incurring any penalty. The rationale behind such a right of withdrawal stems from the fact that under a distance…Continue reading
Distance contracts under the Consumer Rights Directive /part 1 – Information requirements/
Directive 2011/83/EU on consumer rights (Consumer Rights Directive/CRD) defines a “distance contract” as a contract concluded between a trader and a consumer under an organized distance sales or service-provision scheme, without the simultaneous physical presence of these two parties and with the exclusive use of one or more means of distance communication up to and…Continue reading
Copyright protection of computer programs – advantages and disadvantages
Back in the late 1960s, the trend of “unbundling” software from hardware lead to a significant expansion of the software industry and triggered a clear necessity for the introduction of legal mechanisms for protection of computer programs. A central issue in the debates that followed in the next decades was whether legal protection should be…Continue reading
Patent protection of computer programs (part 2)
The core purpose of granting patent rights is not only to reward the inventor but above all to create strong incentives for innovation across all sectors of the economy. It is because of such incentives that we are seeing increased investments in new technology and more pronounced trends of commercialization of groundbreaking products and processes.…Continue reading
Patent protection of computer programs (part 1)
Back in the 1960s computer programs did not have the status of standalone products. They were written specifically for a given mainframe computer and were bundled together with the hardware as an offering to the end customers. Accordingly, computer programs had a secondary role as mere accessories to hardware. This started to change at the…Continue reading
Forms of expression of a computer program protected under copyright
Nowadays, the copyright system is the dominant legal framework for protection of computer programs. However, this was not always the case. Back in the 1970s, there was strong competition between the patent and copyright systems for taking the throne in governing IP protection of software. Copyright was deemed a good fit as computer programs in…Continue reading