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Melbourne Law School University of Melbourne
IP trends in the European Union:
an overview of recent decisions of the Court of Justice
Enrico Bonadio
City University London
26 November 2013
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Case law• Copyright
Murphy (C-403/08 and C-429/08)
English Premier League TV rights
Promusicae v Telefónica (C-275/06)
Balance copyright / privacy
Scarlet v. Sabam (C-360/10)
Balance copyright / certain fundamental rights
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Case law
• Trademarks
Google France (C-236/08 to C-238/08)
Google's liability in relation to Adwords
Lego (C-48/09)
Unregistrability of Lego bricks
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Case law
• Patents
Brüstle v Greenpeace (C-34/2010)
(Un)patentability of Human Embryonic Stem Cells
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IP as fundamental right
• Art. 17(2) Charter of Fundamental Rights EU: “Intellectual property shall be protected”
• After Lisbon (2009): charter has the same legal value as the EU treaties
Murphy case
• Football Association Premier League v QC Leisure and Karen Murphy v Media Protection Services Ltd
• Cases C-403/08 and C-429/08
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Murphy case
• Rights licensed on a territorial basis
• Prohibition of national broadcasters to supply decoders/cards abroad
• Encryption technologies
• Segmentation of the EU market
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Murphy case
• Civil proceedings against Greek and Middle East importers of decoders cards (into the UK)
• Criminal proceedings against Karen Murphy
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Murphy case
• October 2011 CJEU:
• (i) against freedom to provide cross-border services (Art. 56 TFEU)
• (ii) anti-competitive (Art. 101 TFEU)
• (iii) football matches in pubs = communication to the public (which can be prohibited by right owners)
• (iv) football matches per se are not copyrightable (only certain bits of the broadcast)
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Copyright v Privacy
• Promusicae v Telefónica (C-275/06)
• Tension between copyright and privacy
• especially in digital world
• Similar finding: LSG v Tele 2 (C-557/07)
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ISPs – filtering mechanisms
• Scarlet v SABAM (C-360/10)• General and preventive
filtering systems are unlawful under EU law
• (i) limiting ISPs freedom to conduct business
• Balancing copyright with:
(ii) users’ right to privacy
(iii) users’ right to receive/impart information
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Trademarks in Internet• Trademarks, keywords and Ad-words• Google France (C-236/08 to C-238/08)
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Trademarks in Internet
• CJEU: Google not liable for trademark infringement
• CJEU: advertisers may be liable (to be decided by national courts on a case-by-case basis)
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Shape as trademark
• Lego (Case-48/09) • Lego brick cannot be registered because its shape is
necessary to obtain a technical result
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Shape as trademark
• Philips / Remington (C-299/99)
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Biotech patents
• Brüstle (C-34/2010)• Article 6(c) Biotech Directive
(“uses of human embryos for industrial or commercial purposes”)
• Human Embryonic Stem Cells involving destruction of human embryos are not patentable on morality grounds
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Common aspects
• IPRs are fundamental rights (Art. 17.2 Charter)• but they are not absolute
• They should be balanced against public interests
• Eg safeguarding a competitive business environment (Murphy – Lego – Philips/Remington)
• Eg protecting morality (Brüstle)
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Common aspects
• IPRs should also be balanced against the fundamental rights of other stakeholders:
• Eg, users’ right to privacy (Scarlet - Promusicae)• Eg, users’ right to free speech (Scarlet)• Eg, ISPs’ right to conduct their business (Scarlet –
Google France)• Eg, protection of human embryos (Brüstle)
• Are we witnessing an evolution in European IP law?
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Melbourne Law SchoolUniversity of Melbourne
THANKS FOR YOUR ATTENTION
Enrico Bonadio
City University London