Included in this issue: Claims of bad faith and breach of exclusivity: not cricket?; Developing a case for additional damages for copyright infringement; Google Ads – it's all in the small print and more...


Claims of bad faith and breach of exclusivity: not cricket?

  • Licensee of sports broadcast rights fails to pay sums due under the rights agreement
  • Licensee argues breach of exclusivity by rights owner
  • Can a licensor commence discussions with a new licensee without breaching exclusivity?

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Developing a case for additional damages for copyright infringement

  • Claim of copyright infringement of architects' drawings
  • Claimant seeks additional damages for "flagrancy" of the breach
  • To what extent is the Defendant's knowledge relevant?

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"Outstanding" contribution to the case law on employee inventions

  • Claim for compensation by an employed inventor of patented technology
  • How to assess compensation when an employer has received an "outstanding" benefit from the invention?
  • Guidance from the Court of Appeal on how to assess the benefit to an employer in the case of very large corporations

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Accusations of trade mark infringement: a graphic example

  • Trade mark dispute between two manufacturers of computer parts
  • Did a letter from one side's lawyers amount to a groundless threat of infringement proceedings in the UK?
  • High Court gives guidance on how to assess a letter which threatens proceedings, where there is an international dimension

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Court of Appeal refuses to impose a special test for obviousness for therapeutic use patent cases

  • Court of Appeal upholds decision of High Court that patent owned by Genentech is invalid for obviousness
  • Court rejects argument that where a claim relates to a drug combination to achieve a claimed effect, there must be a very high expectation of success in order for the invention to be "obvious to try"
  • The test for obviousness remains flexible, multifactorial and case-specific

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Google Ads – it's all in the small print

  • Argos Limited claims for trade mark infringement against an unrelated US business with the same name
  • Held that the defendant's use of ARGOS in the domain name argos.com and via Google Ads did not amount to trade market infringement

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