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News to hand today: the US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has handed down its en banc judgment in the Yahoo! case regarding enforcement of the judgment of the French Court in La Ligue Contre Le Racisme et L’Antisemitisme v. Yahoo!, Inc. It would appear that:

• 3 judges decided to dismiss for lack of ripeness
• 3 decided to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction; thus the case was dismissed, despite the
• 5 judges who thought that there was both jurisdiction and ripeness.

Huh? I hear you ask? Isn’t the Yahoo! case, like, ancient history in internet terms? Yes indeed, but remember, that we are working on law time here, not internet time. Brief precis of the case over the fold. (more…)

A few of the patent blogs over the last week or so have been reporting a decline in patent litigation in the US, sourced from analysis done by LegalMetrics. But is it so? I’m not so sure… (more…)

2005 was one of those years where the IP developments just kept coming. Kazaa, Fair Dealing/Fair Use, a TPM law inquiry, Stevens v Sony, the occasional patent judgment, another government inquiry. And that’s just the Australian stuff. We also of course had stuff like the Grokster judgment, developments in the Blackberry litigation … more treaty-making. It was hard keeping up. Matt Rimmer has done a run down over here.

Instead of doing my own round up, I thought it might be fun to list up the things that are still to come in Australian IP. Just so I can feel exhausted before we even really start the year. So, over the fold, my round up of developments to expect, and issues to come, in Australian IP law. (more…)

I’m more an IP person than a contract person, but in teaching IT law, you do often come up against that question – just how far can warranties go in excluding corporate liability?

The SMH reports that the ACCC has taken legal action in the Federal Court against LG Electronics for telling customers who bought its mobile phones that it offered only a limited and voluntary one-year warranty. (more…)

You know it’s time to start blogging again when you realise you are talking back at the television (although at least I refrained from yelling at the tv…). Sometimes I wonder whether I’m doomed to keep blogging for so long as US-Australia FTA IP issues keep periodically hitting the headlines.

Why was I displaying this mild form of insanity? Last night, the FTA, and pharmaceutical prices issues hit the 7:30 Report (transcript not yet available), building on a story that hit the newspaper sites yesterday. (more…)

Earlier this month I posted Part 1 of “What is region coding?”, which described the technology, commercial rationale, and economic effects of this system. This posting is Part 2, and considers the legal implications of region coding, with a focus on developments in the United States and Australia. (more…)

Matt Rimmer has a nice round-up of the year’s IT and IP stories at CCH (registration may be required). It has the usual suspects (Grokster, Sony v Stevens, the Sony rootkit) and also a nice summary of a French decision (Stéphane P and Association UFC v Universal Pictures Video France — Court d’Appeal de Paris) about DRM that prevents DVDs being copied to VHS tapes for private use.

The New York Times is reporting that Elliott Spizer’s office has served subpoenas on Universal Music, Sony, EMI and Warner Music as part of an investigation into whether the “four record companies that dominate the industry have violated antitrust laws in the pricing of songs that are sold by Internet music services”. (more…)

A number of the more influential media have recent articles on the NTP vs RIM BlackBerry saga. The Wall Street Journal and The New Yorker have more or less pro-RIM stories, while The Economist has a somewhat pro-NTP story.

There’s a fair bit more to this story than is usually reported. Leaving aside the two perennials (the appropriateness of allowing patent claims for independent invention that did not actually copy the patentee’s method, but independently recreated it; and the appropriateness of ‘patent troll’ tactics — which may really be an argument about the standard for laches or estoppel against a patentee) there are two meatier issues. (more…)

This edition of “What is…?” describes the regional coding systems used by the entertainment industry, with a particular emphasis on DVDs. This article will explain the technology behind region coding, describe how the system is enforced, and speculate on the commercial reasons for the system. It will then consider the economic effects of region coding and its possible legal implications, including a discussion of recent litigation in which region coding has been at issue.

This posting contains Part 1, which provides an introduction to how region coding works from both technological and legal perspectives, as well as the commercial justifications for region coding and its possible economic effects. Part 2 considers the legal issues raised by region coding, in the context of both competition/antitrust law as well as the anti-circumvention provisions that have been adopted as part of copyright law in both Australia and the United States. (more…)

The Australian is reporting that lawyers for MIPI will seek an order from the Federal Court to shut down the Kazaa network, because Sharman has failed to implement keyword filtering that it was required to introduce. (more…)

The Sydney Morning Herald is reporting that Kazaa has blocked access to its network from Australia, in response to its loss in the Federal Court in September. (more…)

I’ve added Raymond Nimmer’s Contemporary IP Licensing and Information Law blog to our list of links.

Ray tends to post only every other week or so, but his entries are insightful and well argued. Those interested in the Google Print debate might be interested in reading his post on the subject, in which he argues that Google’s controversial scanning project is unlikely to fall under the fair use exception to copyright infringement.

In another post, Ray argues that shrinkwrap and clickwrap licences are enforceable contracts.

It’s been a long time coming. The television and Internet industries are working together to offer consumers the ability to download, legally, movies and television episodes. This convergence might be seen as inevitable, particularly since the advent of TiVo, Foxtel iQ, and other services using digital video recording systems (DVRs), as well as the popularity of P2P file-sharing networks. These industry developments reflect an important influence: the power of consumer demand. (more…)

With all the current terror talk, perhaps it’s time that IP got in on the act. According to the IPKat, and from the New York Sun, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority in New York has filed a trademark application for the phrase ‘If you see, something, say something’, in order to police the phrase and those who use it. This is just wilful misunderstanding of trade mark law. (more…)