A few updates over the last few days:
A couple of developments in Europe that may be of interest: 1) The long awaited United Patent Court is scheduled to open its doors and accept cases as of April 1, 2023; and 2) the EPO is abolishing the “10-day rule” for responding to deadlines, effectively reducing the time available to respond.
Here are two recent foreign decisions that may be of interest:
Earlier today, the European Court of Justice held that under European law individuals have the right to request that Google remove certain links that appear when someone searches for their name. The Court considered that Google’s activities were ‘processing of personal data” within Europe and that an internet search engine operator is responsible for the processing that it carries out of personal data which appear on web pages published by third parties.
A significant break through was made towards a single European Patent. EU has decided that Paris will host a central European Patent Court to determine issues of infringement and validity. The EPO will grant the unified patent for 25 countries.
The European Court of Justice has ruled on the use of class headings in European community trademarks in “IP Translator” – C-307/10 Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys.
The European Court of Justice in SAS Institute Inc. v. World Programming Ltd, C‑406/10 held that functional aspects of software are not an “expression” protected by copyright.
The European Court of Justice released a decision last week in SABAM vs Netlog (C-360/10) denying a request that a social network site install general filters against the exchange of copyrighted music and videos. In Canadian copyright news, Bill C-11, the copyright amendment Bill went to committee with a schedule to review the bill by the end of March.
The European Court of Justice issued a judgment in Scarlet v. SADAM (C‑70/10) deciding an injunction requiring general content filtering by an ISP for possible copyright infringing materials contravened EU directives.
Continue reading Copyright filtering by ISPs too onerous according to ECJ
In a decision released today, the EU Court of Justice ruled in Brustle v. Greenpeace C-34/10 that processes requiring the use of human embryos, broadly defined, as base material even if the description does not refer to the use of human embryos are unpatentable in Europe. Continue reading EU Court of Justice limits patentability of embryonic research