United Kingdom unregistered design right (“UDR”) cases are complicated.  The precise nature of the UDR claimed is often difficult to express (from a claimant perspective) and often difficult to comprehend (from a defendant perspective). UDR were created to complement the protection afforded by copyright and registered design rights in the UK. Registered design law provides…

Introduction from the editors Last week, the UK Supreme Court handed down its judgment in R (Miller) v Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, a case in which the court had to determine the steps required under UK law before the process of leaving the European Union can be initiated.  It goes without…

2016 was a busy year for European copyright law. Unsurprisingly, Brexit and its potential impact on copyright in Europe and the UK was one of the most popular topics on the Kluwer Copyright Blog. Other hot topics included the much-anticipated CJEU judgment in the GS Media case and the ongoing EU copyright reform.  We provide a countdown below…

In Phonographic Performance Ltd v Hagan & Ors (t/a Lower Ground Bar and the Brent Tavern) [2016] EWHC 3076 (IPEC) HHJ Hacon considered the interplay of s.97(2) of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (CDPA) and art.13(1) of Directive 2004/48/EC on the enforcement of intellectual property rights (the Enforcement Directive) when awarding additional damages…

As discussed in this blog post, the impact which Brexit has on the UK’s copyright regime will largely depend on the exact form that Brexit takes. Whilst copyright has remained far less harmonised across EU member states than other IP rights, one aspect of UK law which has been affected by the EU is the…

Following a referendum on 23 June 2016, 51.9% of UK voters said “yes” to Brexit. British Prime Minister Theresa May revealed earlier this month that Article 50 TEU will be triggered by March 2017, marking the beginning of the formal withdrawal process. It is hard to predict the impact of Brexit on the current copyright…

What is an appropriate royalty for a broadcaster to pay for the right to include music in its broadcasts?  This is a question the UK Copyright Tribunal considered recently in a rather dry but comprehensive decision. The decision was under Section 126 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (“CDPA”) relating to a dispute…

BREXIT will obviously have an impact on some of the intellectual property regimes the UK will operate under in the post-EU world, but will it have a significant impact on the copyright regime in the UK? Copyright is probably the intellectual property right that is the least harmonised in the EU. There have been attempts…

The UK electorate’s vote to leave the European Union has been perceived as a bolt from the blue. After the initial shock, the potential legal and business implications of Brexit have been widely discussed. In the field of IP, the main concern has been to predict how UK IP business and law will be affected….

The court held that the defendant did not infringe the claimant’s copyright or database rights beyond the infringements already admitted, as none of the defendant’s customers apart from one had access to the claimant’s software. A full summary of this case has been published on Kluwer IP Law