Category — International

US and German copyright laws are based on different principles which often causes confusion. One of the main differences relates to the creator’s exploitation rights. Pursuant to the German Copyright Act, a creator may sell the rights of utilisation but will retain in essence all exploitation rights.

One of the most fascinating and challenging areas of the law (I find) are cases where more than one jurisdiction is involved. Since the dawn of the Internet international aspects of the law have become relevant even to small businesses and individual consumers to an extent unprecedented so far. This development is even more true in the field of intellectual property. Infringements can easily spread over the Internet within no time, literally all over the world, involving multiple jurisdictions.

This mini series will cover some of the most essential international aspects of intellectual property law from the German and European point of view.

Inter European cases of infringement
In cases where plaintiff and defendant are domiciled in (different) member states of the EU (except Denmark), jurisdiction is determined pursuant to Council Regulation (EC) No 44/2001.

The general rule is that a person shall be sued in the member state of that person’s domicile. There are several exceptions to this general rule. The most relevant one in infringement cases is in regards to torts. A person may also be sued where the harmful event occurred or may occur. Due to the “virtual” nature of intellectual property, place of action (where the infringing action is happening) and place of effect (where the damage actually occurs) are identical.

Whether an event was harmful and therefore constitutes jurisdiction of a member state, is determined by the relevant laws of that member state (e.g. Trademark Act, Copyright Act).

To be continued.

Apparently hell breaks loose on the other side of the pond reports IP attorney Ron Coleman in his blawg “Likelihood of Confusion®”.

It´s all about Goolge planning to allow trademarked keywords in GoogleAdwords. I suspect Google must have felt inspired by the German Federal Court of Justice and is trying to push a trend from Europe over to the US. This will most certainly  drive Adwords revenue significantly.

See also my previous post on this matter here and here.

Update:
A great post about the whole subject matter can be found here in Shireen Smith’s ip-brands.com blog. She discusses the situation in the UK but also France, Germany and the Netherlands. A must read!

The academic side of things: Eric Goldman in his Technology and Marketing Law blog here. Interesting and thought provoking.

According to Radio France International, the French Parliament yesterday passed a bill that will be signed into law by President Sarkozy shortly, based on which Internet users pirating software or music over the Internet my lose their Internet connection.

Interesting development. Unfortunately the article doesn´t specify, to what extent the Internet connection will be shut down. Will pirates be banned from using the Internet at all, i.e. banned from using the internet? Otherwise they might just register another account with another provider. Also, what is the maximum suspension time? Hopefully I will be able to report some more specific details, soon.

So far, I think this is a strong signal. The question is, if this is going to have an impact other than the message itself. We all know the Internet well enough to predict that the very same people who are targeted here, will very likely and easily find ways to circumvent this ban.

And one thing is for sure: rather sooner than later, this law will be challenged in terms of constitutionality and compliance with EU law. We shall see. I will keep you posted.