The Institute of European Law at the University of Birmingham is to host a conference devoted to the analysis of Microsoft v EU. The Institute describes it as a landmark case both because of its findings and because of its future implications. Attendance at the Conference, which begins on Friday 6 May at 4 pm…
Read More… from Microsoft v EU: Conference on the IT Industry and the Future of Competition Law
The judgment has caused great excitement in IP circles. It now appears that if companies can show that their programs made a substantive inventive contribution they may be eligible for protection regardless of the fact that such programs were distributed on a computer disc. Last year, Astron Clinica Limited (producing skin-imaging technology that enables images…
The Online Purchasing of Goods and Services (Age Verification) Bill 2007-08 was introduced under the Ten Minute Rule Bill procedure by Margaret Moran, the Labour MP for Luton South. Although granted a Second Reading on 16 May and ordered to be printed, it has little chance of becoming law. However, this is said to be…
Brief but important note, via the Asociated Press: the EU Art 29 Working Party group working on privacy, DP and Internet search engines (notably Google) has issued an early press release. ‘Germany’s data protection commissioner, Peter Scharr, leads the EU group preparing a report on how well the privacy policies of Internet search engines operated…
Read More… from Blog Taster: IP Addresses are Personal Data – Official
On 13 December 2007 Ofcom published what it described as one of the most important decisions it has ever had to make: how it will award the valuable radio spectrum that will be made available by the switch from analogue to digital television broadcasting, otherwise known as the ‘digital dividend’. Over the next few years…
Carphone Warehouse and sister company TalkTalk have been found in breach of the Data Protection Act 1998. The Information Commissioner made the ruling after investigating complaints concerning the way in which both organisations processed and stored personal information. The ICO has now issued Carphone Warehouse and TalkTalk with an enforcement notice. The two companies must…
Read More… from ICO Enforcement Action against Carphone Warehouse and TalkTalk
Open source software (OSS), has always had the advantage that it is inherently more adaptable than its commercial packaged equivalents. It is also true that, compared to commercial packages, it can appear inexpensive (at least initially). It is not surprising therefore that public administrations around the world are embracing the revolution and moving away from…
Read More… from Open Source Software in the Public Sector in Ireland
Messrs Charlton and Lavy make sound points with regard to poor execution of e-disclosure, and make some sensible suggestions as to how this can be avoided in the future in their article (E-disclosure, Needles and Haystacks, Vol 18, Issue 1). It is regrettable that anyone should have to wade through such a large number of…
Read More… from E-disclosure: Giant Haystacks and the Needle of Doom
On 3 January the EU Commission ‘adopted a Communication on Creative Content Online which launches further actions to support the development of innovative business models and the deployment of cross-border delivery of diverse online creative content services’. The press release of that day is pasted below but is in part quite hard to follow. There…
Read More… from EU Commission Strategy for Creative Content Online
The UK Intellectual Property Office has published its proposed changes to the copyright exceptions in a document entitled Taking Forward the Gowers Review of Intellectual Property. Responses are sought by 8 April 2008. While the focus for many with an interest in technology has generally been on format shifting, all of the proposed changes…