Around the IP Blogs

The CREATe blog continued with posts from their 21 for 2021 project. In this series, the blog’s authors offer answers to 21 topical copyright questions for the 21st century. Last week’s post is dedicated to performers’ rights. It reviews the basic issues on the topic, then elaborates on the importance of performers’ rights for creative industries and the main debates and developments in the area.

PatentLyO discussed the SAS Institute, Inc. v. World Programming Limited case, pending before the US Federal Circuit. The basic question in the case is whether a programming language used in SAS software is copyrightable. SAS claims that the defendant copied the functionality and use of the coding language. The case attracted numerous amicus briefs, which are listed in the PatentLyO’s post for easy reference.

The Juve Patent Blog considered recent appointments in the Dusseldorf Regional Court and looked into varying procedures (including those on early first hearings) that applying Dusseldorf and Munich Regional Courts in patent cases. Together with the Mannheim court, which, according to Juve Patent, is popular for SEP litigation, they are the largest patent courts in Germany.

In the same vein, the Kluwer Patent blog published a short update on length of proceedings and procedures in the English Patent Courts. The update comes one year since the appointment of Meade and Mellor JJ as first instance judges, after Arnold and Birss JJ were promoted to the Court of Appeal.

The Fashion Law Blog shared news about a recent draft law on electronic commerce, published by the Chinese authorities. The Draft Law suggests introducing new penalties for IP infringement that take place on e-commerce platforms, occurring on such platforms. This Draft Law would amend the current Chinese Law on electronic commerce, which was adopted in January 2019.