GOOGLE V. SPAIN – SPANISH PUBLISHERS SUFFER AS GOOGLE NEWS CLOSES OPERATIONS
A new Copyright law which has made it mandatory for Google, Yahoo and other news aggregators to pay licensing fee to all news publishers for using their stories or snippets in Google News, results in Google cutting its operations in Spain. However, the regulation allowed publishers to opt in to Google’s index, and prevent Google from paying licensing fee.
COPYRIGHT REGULATION TO ALLOW PRIVATE COPYING; TO FACE IRE OF UK MUSIC INDUSTRY
In UK, music can be legally copied to a private system but a strong resistance was noticed from the UK music industry. The law came into force on October 1, 2015.
FLICKR DISCONTINUES SALE OF CONTROVERSIAL CC PRINTS; ISSUES REFUND
…Flickr, Yahoo-owned image hosting website, has issued an apology for using prints of images licensed under Creative Commons (CC) in its recently launched Wall Art paint service. It however, does not plan to abandon the Wall Art and will continue to take orders from users for prints from personal images and those shared by “licensed artists”.
ARE LINKEDIN CONNECTIONS TRADE SECRETS?
David Oakes, was working in a sales position with a company called Cellular Accessories under an Employment Agreement with a clause to safeguard the company’s trade secrets. He managed to get more that 900 contacts on Linkedin. When he left the Cellular, he retained his Linkedin account and started a new company called Trinitas with the contact list present in his account. The Cellular sued him for this and the court declared that the customer list is a trade secret but left the question of LinkedIn connections for Jury determination.
ROYALTIES FOR SINGERS – DELHI HIGH COURT PASSES A FAVORABLE ORDER
The Indian Singers Rights Association (ISRA) has obtained a favourable order against one of the Delhi based Night Fever Club & Lounge, that has been playing songs and not paying Singers their due. The ISRA filed a suit against this lounge before the Delhi High Court on December 18, 2014 and have been successful in procuring a favourable order.
ASTRAZENECA TO RETAIN SWEETNESS OF ONGLYZA
ANDA (Abbreviated New Drug Application) was sued by Aurobindo Pharma with the USFDA with regard to seeking the market approval for Saxagliptin hydrochloride tablets before the expiry of its US patent. The court ordered that, other submission of ANDA by Aurobindo Pharma prior to the patent expiry constitutes a technical act of infringement and from the primary information available, one or two claims of the unexpired patent would be infringed by the product described in the ANDA.
LOUISIANA STATE UNIV TO DOUBLE INVESTMENTS FOR MOVING INNOVATION INTO MARKET
To effectively transfer innovation out of the lab and into the market, Louisiana State University (LSU), established LSU LIFT (Leveraging Innovation for Technology Transfer) Fund, which offers bi-annual funding to LSU faculty members, also to continually support the LSU LIFT Fund by assigning 5% of the university’s future IP licensing income to the new fund.
RPX ACQUIRES PATENTS OWNED BY APPLE’S ROCKSTAR CONSORTIUM FOR US$ 900M
To acquire around 4,000 patents owned by Rockstar, a consortium, led by Apple Inc. and other firms for US$ 900M, RPX Corp entered into an agreement. RPX does n’t use its patents to file lawsuits, but provides the access of its intellectual property to around 200 of its client members.
NEW COPYRIGHT LAW: PARODY IS LEGAL IF JUDGE THINKS IT’S FUNNY
…This post is authored by Nitish Chaudhary. Along with changes in Parody Law, there’s a new freedom by law to create personal copies, for private use.
