"Man of Steel " stays with DC comics

DC Comics, famous comic book publishers would retain their rights to "Superman comic" after a Judge ruled that the heir's of one of the Super hero's co creators signed away their ability to reclaim copyrights 20 years ago.
Super man - the Man of steel, was introduced by Shuster and Jerry Sigel as a comic book series in 1938 and since then have been entertaining reader irrespective of age.
DC Comics sued the heirs of artist Joe Shuster in 2010, seeking a ruling that they are not entitled to reclaim Superman's copyrights, stating that Shuster's sister and brother have relinquished their right to reclaim copyrights in 1992 in exchange for annual pension payments from DC Comics.
The ruling means that DC comics and its owner Warner Bothers can retain all rights to continue using the character in books, films, television and other mediums. This is particularly relevant as new superman film "Man of Steel" is to be screened in 2013 

Source:  www.hollywoodrepoter.com  

DC Books Win Copyrights Over Superman

After SRK, it is the turn of Mr. Khiladi

Few days back, we got the news that Shahrukh Khan is all set to get the name SRK registered at the Trademark Registry. In somewhat we may refer to as following the suit, Akshay Kumar is heard to be making efforts to get the name 'Khiladi' registered at the Trademark Registry. 

He has been acted in seven Khiladi movies since 1992. Also, he is awaiting his eighth outing with the upcoming Khiladi 786. He is set to take his association with the successful franchise a step forward. 

“Khiladi has become a brand that Akshay is associated with. And Akshay is very emotional about it. That’s why he has decided to apply for a trademark,” says an insider. He further adds that “The idea is to bar its usage for commercial purposes, including films, TV, advertisements and other industries".

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WIPO members to meet for discussing text on Treaty for visually impaired

WIPO members are gathering this week to advance work on a draft treaty on exceptions to copyright for visually impaired readers.An inter-sessional meeting on limitations and exceptions for visually impaired persons and persons with print disabilities is taking place from 17-19 October.

Delegates are working on a revised working document  issued on 26 July, at the 24th session of the Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights 

Among the issues to discuss includes definition of accessible format copy, and of authorized entities, which refers to entities that address the needs of visually impaired persons including providing those persons with services relating to education, and information accessWorking Document for Vissually Impaired

Update: New Text on visually impaired treaty 

 After three days of discussion on treaty for visually impaired WIPO member yesterday closed their discussion after bring out another draft version of the text. 

New text have agreement on what should be the meaning of accessible format however points of disagreement remains as to nature and scope of obligations

Revised WIPO Vissually Impaired Treaty

Chinese writers sue Apple for copyright infringement

Apple is all over news again after a group of Chinese writers filed a copyright infringement against them in Beijing for unauthorizedly selling electronic version of their book  via App store.

Writers demanded a compensation of 1.6 million USD for violating their copyrights 34 different works. writers allege that the applications involved unlicensed electronic version of their book which have been heavily downloaded, causing huge economic loses to them while bringing profits to Apple as well as the application developers.

Apple however took the plea that they are a not the proper party to the suit and appealed for application developer to stand for the trial. 

Earlier same court have order Apple to pay 8270.30 USD as compensation for economic losses suffered by the Encyclopedia of China Publishing House for copyright infringements

From SRK to SRK (Regd.) - Don's new move?

It doesn't matter whether Amitabh Bachhan has not applied for the trademark protection of his nickname Big B. But Shahrukh Khan has recently, sent an application to the Trade Mark Registry that his often-used initials not be used without his permission. 

According to the reports by The TOI, the actor has recently applied for a trademark on his name SRK at the Delhi office of the Trade Mark Registry. He awaits the final confirmation on it. According to the rules, once his trademark SRK is published in the Indian Trademark Journal, anybody who has an objection can file a notice within three months.

This is not the first time of such applucation in India. Earlier this year, Sachin Tendulkar had applied for the same, to trademark his name SRT. In fact, when Vidhu Vinod Chopra needed to use the cricketer's name in his film Ferrarri Ki Sawaari, he had to seek Sachin's permission.

This trend is being followed from the West, where getting a trademark on one's name isn't uncommon. In fact, Roger Federer, Michael Jordon and Jennifer Lopez are among some of the names that have been trademarked in the past.
 
Such a move by the actor will bar several industries from using his name. For example, tobacco products, alcoholic beverages, water and even other non-alcoholic drinks can't use the actor's name. The same goes for fresh fruits, vegetables, salt, mustard so on and so forth.

EBC restrained from publishing its own injunction

Earlier we have reported about an injunction granted by the Lucknow District  against Westlaw India and Indlaw from infringing the copyrights of Eastern Book Company in their case reports "Supreme Court Cases". Report available here.

Now in an interesting move Legally India reports that the  Lucknow District court through another injunction restrained EBC from publicizing that they have been granted an injunction by the same court for alleged plagiarism.

Order: (translation available with Legally India). 

Copyright for Palance fabric design granted to Culp

As per the announcement made recently, by Culp Inc., the United States Copyright Office has granted copyright protection for Culp’s Palance fabric design. The effective date of Culp’s copyright registration is August 8, 2011.

 

Culp is the market leader for fabrics that encompass the essence of natural leather without actually being leather. Like many designs before it, the design, format, layout and shading used in the Palance fabric design combine to create a one-of-a-kind design unique to Culp. Culp is the owner of copyright rights in other popular fabric designs as well, including its Palomino, Wrangler, Stampede, Congo, and Gunslinger fabrics, all of which are protected by copyright registrations.

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Mc Donald filed for coffee trademark

McDonald's Corp. has filed a trademark using its name for ground and whole-bean coffee.  McDonald's Corp has filed for the trademark McCafe Indicating intention of burger giants to enter into retail markets.

The registration was made last month, and The Wall Street Journal says it signals the quintessential American fast food chain could be considering selling packaged coffee in grocery stores, emulating some of its competitors.

MC Donald filed for Mc Cafe trademark for coffe

India follows International Exhaustion - Delhi HC

In a most recent and landmark judgment on the issue of "exhaustion principle" in Indian trademark law, a Division Bench of the Delhi High Court has held that Indian trademark law follows an “international exhaustion” regime. 

The Bench comprising of Justices Pradeep Nandrajog and Siddharth Mridul partially allowed the appeal filed by Kapil Wadhwa and others (Appellants) against the judgment of Single Judge Justice Manmohan Singh in Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. & Anr. v. Kapil Wadhwa & Ors., wherein the Single Judge had held the Appellants guilty of trademark infringement and had ruled that trademark law prohibits the sale of imported genuine products without the authorization of the registered proprietor in India.

 

The appeal was partially allowed by the Division Bench, thereby setting aside the judgment dated February 17, 2012 insofar as the Appellants had been restrained from importing printers, ink cartridges/toners bearing the trade mark Samsung/SAMSUNG and selling the same in India. However, the Appellants have still been injuncted from meta-tagging their website to that of Samsung. 

 

Way back in the single bench judgment of this case, Samsung Electronics Co. and its Indian subsidiary Samsung India had initially filed a suit claiming that the Appellants were selling genuine and unaltered Samsung printers imported directly from foreign markets into India without due authorization.  The Single Judge had held that the Appellants were guilty of trademark violation. It was against this judgment, the Appellants had filed an appeal.

 

Samsung was reprsented by Pravin Anand of Anand & Anand while the Kapil Wadhwa and others were represented Saikrishna Rajagopal on instructions from Shwetasree Majumdar of Fidus Law Chambers.

 

The Court observed that the single judge adopted an “erroneous approach” to conclude that unless goods are imported into India by the consent of the registered proprietor of a trade mark “the act of importation is not permitted” as per sub Section 3 of Section 30 (of the Trademarks Act), which provision provides for “acquisition by consent for the purposes of import”. In the appeal, the Court recognized the the principle of international exhaustion under the Trademarks Act, 1999 and observed that the same was clear from the fact that the term ‘in any geographical area’, in the Statement of Objects and Reasons to the Trade Mark Bill 1999 “clearly envisaged that the legislative intent was to recognize the principle of international exhaustion of rights to control further sale of goods once they were put on the market by the registered proprietor of the trade mark”. 

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Copy of the Judgment

Youtube to manually review some claims

Google-owned YouTube is set to alter its algorithms to reduce invalid copyright infringement claims on its video-sharing site and soon it will begin manually reviewing some claims instead of the system automatically blocking disputed footage.

One month before, the First Lady Michelle Obama’s speech at the Democratic National Convention was wrongly flagged by algorithms just after it aired. YouTube, the official streaming partner of the Democratic National Convention, had automatically put a copyright blocking message on the live-stream video of the event shortly after it ended.

Thabet Alfishawi, the rights management product manager for YouTube, addressing the issue of false positives and outright abuse of the system, said, “We’ve improved the algorithms that identify potentially invalid claims. We stop these claims from automatically affecting user videos and place them in a queue to be manually reviewed.”

The procedure till now.

Five years ago YouTube adopted a filtering system, which enabled rights holders to upload music and videos they own to a “fingerprinting” database. When YouTube account holders upload their videos, the algorithm known as Content ID scans new uploads against the copyright database for matches.If a full or partial match is detected, the alleged rights holder can have the video automatically removed, or it can place advertising on the video and make money every time somebody clicks on the video.

But if Content ID over-matches or a unauthorized person manages to feed the filter content it doesn’t own, a YouTube user could see her video hijacked through a false copyright claim because Content ID had largely functioned on auto-pilot.

The new rules that were announced yesterday, require the alleged rights holder to abandon the claim or file an official take-down notice under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, if the uploader challenges the match. 

“Prior to today, if a content owner rejected that dispute, the user was left with no recourse for certain types of Content ID claims (e.g., monetize claims). Based upon feedback from our community, today we’re introducing an appeals process that gives eligible users a new choice when dealing with a rejected dispute,” Alfishawi said. “When the user files an appeal, a content owner has two options: release the claim or file a formal DMCA notification.”

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Motorola drops one ITC Patent case against Apple

Motorola Mobility, the unit of Google Inc. (GOOG)’s has become ready to to withdraw a patent-infringement complaint it filed in August against Apple Inc. (AAPL) at the U.S. International Trade Commission. However, it did not come with any reason for such step.

Motorola Mobility reserves the right to refile claims against the AAP, and it denied the existence of any agreement between the two companies, according to filing on the ITC’s electronic docket. Also, a notice of dismissal was filed in a companion civil lawsuit filed in a federal court in Wilmington, Delaware.

California based Apple, and Illinois based Motorola Mobility, have been fighting about smartphone-related patents since around 2010 after licensing talks failed. Apple is claiming that Motorola Mobility violated obligations to license some of its patents on fair terms. A non-jury trial on the same issue is scheduled to begin in the first week of November this year, in a federal court in Madison, Wisconsin. 

In the case that has been withdrawn, Apple was accused of infringing seven Motorola Mobility patents on features including interactive voice commands, location reminders, e-mail notification and phone/video players. Motorola Mobility said that it hoped the filing of the suit in August and the threat against Apple’s iPhone would push the two sides into settlement talks.  

In the order passed yesterday by the ITC Judge Thomas Pender said that he will make a decision by Dec. 21 on that issue. 

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MSF Launches patent opposition database

Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) has today launched an opposition database intended to enable activists to share information and experiences about opposing patents using a single central portal. 

The database comes as many developing countries face dramatically high drug prices because of blocking of lower cost generic drugs due to patents. Database is intended to help civil society to mount patent oppositions.

Currently database contains a searchable listing of 45 patent oppositions related to essential medicines and more than 200 other supporting documents that will aid in the building of  a future patent opposition. Database calls for contribution of details of any patent opposition, application, office decision, prior art etch related to essential medicines. 

Database according to MSF is a took which can be used to explore how to challenge unfair patents and their negative impacts on access to medicines.

The database was launched on the tenth anniversary of a landmark decision by the Central Intellectual Property Court in Thailand to overturn a patent on a key HIV drug based on an opposition filed by patient groups. It is part of MSF's Nobel prize winning Access to Medicine campaign.

Database can be accessed at http://patentoppositions.org

Samsung fights back

In a move which may give Samsung Electronics, a much needed relief, Samsung  on Tuesday  filed a new lawsuit against Apple in a US court, contending the iPhone 5 has infringed on Samsung's patents. In a statement, Samsung said: "we have little choice but to take the steps necessary to protect our innovations and intellectual property rights."

In another major relief for Samsung on Tuesday, a US court removed a sales ban against Samsung Electronics's Galaxy Tab 10.1 won by Apple Inc in a patent dispute, allowing the South Korean electronics maker to sell the product in the United States.

Injunction had been put in place ahead of a month-long trial that pitted iPhone maker Apple against Samsung in a closely watched legal battle that ended with a resounding victory for Apple on many of its patent violation claims. 

However,  jury found that Samsung had not violated patents that was the basis for the tablet injunction and Samsung argued the sales ban should be lifted. Will Samsung be able to gain some ground, or will it bite the dust for patents infringement? We shall have to wait and watch.

New IP Protection law in Panama to impose hefty fine

Panamanian legislators on Wednesday night passed a new Intellectual Property  Protection Law, which would allow commerce officials to impose fines of up to $100,000 for copyright infringements without a trial or civil suit.   

There is a U.S.-Panama free trade agreement which was  approved last  year and this piece of  legislation is meant to bring Panama into compliance with the trade agreement. The legislation has yet to get the Presidential assent. 

As always, some civic groups and organizations representing audio-visual artists and musicians are criticizing the measure, saying it threatens free speech. 

Other artists support the law, hoping it will cut down on pirated versions of their works. Will this legislation prove to be a boon to the artists who support  it, only time will tell.

Infosys way ahead of peers in patents

Infosys, India's second largest software exporter leads in the number of patents filed by Indian  IT companies. According to the data compiled by an equity research firm Barclays, the Indian IT giant has filed 159 USPTO in last five years.

Globally only firm which competes with Infosys is Acceture which filed 345 patents in the last five years.  In India Infy is followed by Tata Consultancy Services Ltd with 43 applications and Wipro with 8 and HCL stands the least among country's top tier IT firms with 4 applications.

In order to maintain uniformity Barclays have confined  their research to USPTO . They have also confirmed that Infy has filed 354 patents globally in different jurisdictions during the last five years.

Infosys is one of the few IT companies that spent money heavily on Research & Development. Reports says that during last three years company has spent 2.1% of its revenue on R&D which is best in the industry.

Source: Business standard