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Melbourne Law School University of Melbourne

IP trends in the European Union:

an overview of recent decisions of the Court of Justice

Enrico Bonadio

City University London

26 November 2013

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Case law• Copyright

Murphy (C-403/08 and C-429/08)

English Premier League TV rights

Promusicae v Telefónica (C-275/06)

Balance copyright / privacy

Scarlet v. Sabam (C-360/10)

Balance copyright / certain fundamental rights

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Case law

• Trademarks

Google France (C-236/08 to C-238/08)

Google's liability in relation to Adwords

Lego (C-48/09)

Unregistrability of Lego bricks

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Case law

• Patents

Brüstle v Greenpeace (C-34/2010)

(Un)patentability of Human Embryonic Stem Cells

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IP as fundamental right

• Art. 17(2) Charter of Fundamental Rights EU: “Intellectual property shall be protected”

• After Lisbon (2009): charter has the same legal value as the EU treaties

Murphy case

• Football Association Premier League v QC Leisure and Karen Murphy v Media Protection Services Ltd

• Cases C-403/08 and C-429/08

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Murphy case

• Rights licensed on a territorial basis

• Prohibition of national broadcasters to supply decoders/cards abroad

• Encryption technologies

• Segmentation of the EU market

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Murphy case

• Civil proceedings against Greek and Middle East importers of decoders cards (into the UK)

• Criminal proceedings against Karen Murphy

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Murphy case

• October 2011 CJEU:

• (i) against freedom to provide cross-border services (Art. 56 TFEU)

• (ii) anti-competitive (Art. 101 TFEU)

• (iii) football matches in pubs = communication to the public (which can be prohibited by right owners)

• (iv) football matches per se are not copyrightable (only certain bits of the broadcast)

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Copyright v Privacy

• Promusicae v Telefónica (C-275/06)

• Tension between copyright and privacy

• especially in digital world

• Similar finding: LSG v Tele 2 (C-557/07)

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ISPs – filtering mechanisms

• Scarlet v SABAM (C-360/10)• General and preventive

filtering systems are unlawful under EU law

• (i) limiting ISPs freedom to conduct business

• Balancing copyright with:

(ii) users’ right to privacy

(iii) users’ right to receive/impart information

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Trademarks in Internet• Trademarks, keywords and Ad-words• Google France (C-236/08 to C-238/08)

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Trademarks in Internet

• CJEU: Google not liable for trademark infringement

• CJEU: advertisers may be liable (to be decided by national courts on a case-by-case basis)

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Shape as trademark

• Lego (Case-48/09) • Lego brick cannot be registered because its shape is

necessary to obtain a technical result

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Shape as trademark

• Philips / Remington (C-299/99)

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Biotech patents

• Brüstle (C-34/2010)• Article 6(c) Biotech Directive

(“uses of human embryos for industrial or commercial purposes”)

• Human Embryonic Stem Cells involving destruction of human embryos are not patentable on morality grounds

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Common aspects

• IPRs are fundamental rights (Art. 17.2 Charter)• but they are not absolute

• They should be balanced against public interests

• Eg safeguarding a competitive business environment (Murphy – Lego – Philips/Remington)

• Eg protecting morality (Brüstle)

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Common aspects

• IPRs should also be balanced against the fundamental rights of other stakeholders:

• Eg, users’ right to privacy (Scarlet - Promusicae)• Eg, users’ right to free speech (Scarlet)• Eg, ISPs’ right to conduct their business (Scarlet –

Google France)• Eg, protection of human embryos (Brüstle)

• Are we witnessing an evolution in European IP law?

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Melbourne Law SchoolUniversity of Melbourne

THANKS FOR YOUR ATTENTION

Enrico Bonadio

City University London