The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) is an institution of the European Union (EU). It is responsible, inter alia, for ensuring that EU law is interpreted and applied in a consistent way in all EU countries. If a national court is in doubt about the interpretation or validity of an EU law, it can ask the Court for clarification. The same mechanism can be used to determine whether a national law or practice is compatible with EU law. The CJEU also resolves legal disputes between national governments and EU institutions, and can take action against EU institutions on behalf of individuals, companies or organisations.
On 13 November 2018, the CJEU clarified the scope of EU copyright law by excluding works of taste from copyright protection. This marks the end of a three-year long dispute, which arose in 2015 between two cheese producers and was based on the idea that the taste of a food product is copyright protected. In…
Website blocking injunction cases are complicated in Sweden because the Copyright Act requires contributory liability of the ISP, or in the case of interim injunctions – probable cause, for an injunction to be issued. While the reduced evidentiary burden for interim injunctions does not completely absolve a court from scrutinising the evidence, the legal context…
The relation between freedom of expression and copyright in the EU is one of imprecision and uncertainty. In Funke Medien (Case C-469/17) the German Federal Supreme Court (BGH) asks whether fundamental rights should permit the unauthorized use of military reports in the absence of an applicable copyright exception. In his Opinion, Advocate General (AG) Szpunar…
The right of distribution is the least controversial of the three exclusive rights contained in the Information Society Directive (InfoSoc Directive). Yet, every now and then the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) is asked to re-examine its scope. With far less interpretative imagination compared with the right of communication to the public,…
As discussed in Part I of this blogpost, the CJEU in Renckhoff was called, once again, to analyse the application of copyright in relation to the use of copyright-protected works on the Internet. The Renckhoff judgment is, therefore, another addition to the complex European copyright case law construction. To date, the often tailor-made jurisprudential solutions…
The delimitation of the proper boundaries of lawful use of copyright-protected works on the Internet has always been puzzling for courts, which in some instances have creatively interpreted the copyright acquis in order to take account of the particularities of the digital ecosystem. In this context, the CJEU in Usedsoft (C-128/11) adopted for the first…
25 July 2018 marks a new episode in the Heks’nkaas saga. After tumultuous court proceedings at the national level and before the European Court of Justice, Advocate General M. Wathelet delivered his opinion in this controversial copyright dispute that is now pending before the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). His opinion can…
To ensure you don’t miss out on interesting IP law developments reported on our other IP blogs, we will, on a regular basis, provide you with an overview of the top 3 most-read posts from each of our IP law blogs. Here are the top posts from June, July and August. Top 3 Kluwer Copyright…
In the run-up to the Plenary vote of the European Parliament in June and again currently, some academics and other voices have criticized the JURI Committee Report especially on Article 13 of the Proposal for a Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market. Among others, they purport that these proposals would contravene the acquis…
On 4 June 2018, one of the core concepts of copyright – the copyright work – was disputed at the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). The “cheese battle”, which started in 2015 at the Court of First Instance in Gelderland (the Netherlands) between HEKS’NKAAS (applicant) and ‘Witte Wievenkaas’ (defendant), resulted in a…
