Intellectual property considerations

nIntellectual property rights – patents, copyright, trade marks, database... nProtect rights holders assets & rights of users – residual threats from the Internet nNature of medium & policy issues nInternational environment & national rights Introductory Remarks

Session Scope nTrade marks – establishing a presence (domain names) – creating associations nCopyright – licensing – linking – technological control

Establishing a Presence

n“..any sign...capable of distinguishing goods or services of one undertaking from those or other undertakings.” – America Online Inc. v AT&T Corporation (2001) nProtecting the consumer (confusion), protecting the mark (dilution) nRegistered ® – classifications: 34 good classes, 8 service classes – unregistered trade marks™ (‘Passing off’) nNotification, licence & usage policy Trade Marks

nIP addresses (Machine Level) – numbers: xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx – allocated on a permanent or dynamic basis nDomain Name System (Human Level) – alphanumeric identifiers overlaid on IP addresses problem of similarity: e.g. dogbody, dogs.body, dogs-body – domain names & IP addresses are resolved by DNS servers (i.e. online databases) generic (gTLDs) or country (ccTLDs):.com or.uk Domain name system

nInternet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) – direct control over gTLDs, contractual arrangements with ccTLDs – need to register with different ‘registries’ for different domains & all relevant combinations e.g. Microsoft’s Hotmail.com – Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) nccTLDs – state or privately operated registries Regulating the DNS System

Trade Marks nnational or regional ndetailed registry examination nuse of mark in course of trade nspecified categories of goods and services nmultiple owners of same trade mark Domain Names ninternational nminimal registry examination ncommercial or non- commercial usage nnot currently linked to a specific type of good or service nsingle ownership of domain name

n Same mark owned by different persons for different goods or services – Prince plc v Prince Sports Group Inc n Same mark owned by different persons in different countries for same good or service – Playboy Enterprises Inc. v Chuckleberry Publishing Inc. n Domain name piracy or cybersquatting – British Telecommunications & ors v One in a Million Ltd. – US Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act 1999 n Parody or critical sites – Societe Compagnie Gervais Danone v Malnuit and others Disputes

nLinks – imposing linking agreements nFrames – Washington Post Co. v. Total News Inc (1997) nMeta-tags – Creating Associations

Copyright

nCopyright as a civil right – copying, alteration, dealing… transient & incidental copying – e.g. a web page intermediary liability – EU Directive 01/29/EC, art. 5(1) nCriminal law – Council of Europe Cybercrime Convention, art. 10 “acts are committed wilfully, on a commercial scale and by means of a computer system” Copyright Issues

n WIPO Copyright Treaty (1996) n Art. 8: ‘making available to the public of their works’ n US: Digital Millennium Copyright Act (1998) n EU: Directive on Copyright in the Information Society (2001) n Database protection – EU: Directive 96/9/EC on the legal protection of databases Legislative Response

Licensing Issues nProprietary licences – ‘click-wrap’ licensing valid and enforceable? e.g. Ticketmaster Corp. v. Tickets.com, Inc., (2000) nFree & open source licensing – e.g. GNU GPL v.3, Apache LINUX & Android nstatutory limitations on licence terms – US v EU policy

Technology Protection nHardware & software-based – e.g. encryption, steganography, watermarking… nLegislative protection – acts of circumvention & anti-circumvention devices – exceptions scientific research, malfunction, filtering software.. nDigital rights management (DRM) information – e.g. International Standard Recording Code

Concluding Remarks nApplying & amending the law – over extending protection? nEconomic rights & consequences nLegal agreements & liability for infringement nEnforcement & technology protection