THJ Systems Limited & Anor v Daniel Sheridan & Anor [2023] EWCA Civ 1354 concerned many issues but the one of most interesting was the correct legal test to consider whether a copyright work is original. One would think this has been well rehearsed in numerous cases already, but the Court of Appeal decision…

The UK High Court has held that Lidl’s rights in the Lidl logo were infringed by Tesco’s Clubcard Price(s) signs ([2023] EWHC 873 (Ch)). Specifically, the court made the following findings. Trade mark infringement – Lidl’s trade mark for the Lidl logo was infringed by Tesco’s Clubcard Price(s) signs, which took unfair advantage of Lidl’s…

Perhaps it comes as no surprise that a copyright dispute regarding a fire-breathing–sneezing dragon would get so heated. The case of Evans v John Lewis Plc & Anor [2023] EWHC 766 (IPEC) is a copyright infringement claim in which the IPEC (a specialist IP court in the UK) was asked to decide whether John Lewis’s…

Summary In the case of Wright & Ors v BTC Core & Ors [2023] EWHC 222 the High Court was faced with a technical copyright question about whether literary copyright can subsist in the file format used for the Bitcoin System (the “Bitcoin File Format”).  Justice Mellor concluded that copyright could not subsist in the…

It seems inevitable that UK copyright law will change at some stage. It increasingly appears that judges are waiting for a case which requires the inconsistencies between EU and UK copyright law to be addressed. Unfortunately, the recent decision in WaterRower v Liking [2022] EWHC 2084 (IPEC) was not that case, despite many reporting in…

The UK High Court has declared that Ed Sheeran’s mega-hit “Shape of You” does not infringe copyright in Sami Switch’s lesser-known song “Oh Why” ([2022] EWHC 827 (Ch)). The case focuses on whether Ed Sheeran consciously copied Sami Switch’s chorus. Accordingly, this case is a useful example of how a court will: (1) assess the…

Original Beauty Technology Company Limited & others v G4K Fashion Limited & others, [2021] EWHC 3439 (Ch) The High Court has recently awarded £450,000 in damages to a successful claimant in a dispute about unregistered design rights in clothing. Unregistered design rights in the UK are a unique right that often catch designs that fall…

Readers of this blog will be familiar with the English High Court’s strong track record in issuing injunctions to compel internet service providers (“ISPs”) to block access to copyright-infringing websites.  In the latest such order issued by the High Court (on 3 February 2022), one of the target websites was a cyberlocker hosting movies and…

There has been widespread press coverage of Meghan Markle’s (the Duchess of Sussex) recent success in a claim which she brought against the publishers of the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday and the Mail Online website (“the Mail”). In February 2021, the High Court granted Ms Markle summary judgment on her claim for misuse of…

The UK government has run a consultation on the future of the UK’s exhaustion of IP rights regime. This ran for 12 weeks, closing on 31 August 2021. The consultation was open to responses from businesses, representative organisations, civil society organisations, legal practitioners, creators and consumers. The government is now considering the responses to the…