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Private Copying and Parody Exceptions – What’s Changed?
Image from Wikipedia. User: Hellisp
IPKat broke the news this Monday that revised draft Statutory Instruments for Personal Copies for Private Use and Quotation and Parody copyright exceptions have been released by the government.
As readers may recall, in March this year, five draft legislations (covering Personal Copies for Private Use, Quotation and Parody, Disability, Public Administration and Research, Education, Libraries and Archives) were published that were to modernise UK copyright law. These were slated to become law on 1 June 2014. However, in May, it emerged that two of these exceptions, Private Use and Parody (arguably the two most important sets of changes), would be considered at a later stage.
Now, the amended draft legislation on these two outstanding exceptions has been published. So what has actually changed?
IP Bill becomes the Intellectual Property Act 2014
[Update 19.5.2014: the Intellectual Property Act 2014 has now appeared on the legislation.gov.uk website and can be accessed here]
The Intellectual Property Bill left the “ping pong” stage last month after the House of Lords approved the amendments made to the Bill by the House of Commons. Yesterday evening, the IP Bill received Royal Assent to pass into law as the Intellectual Property Act 2014 (House of Lords Hansard; Parliament (Intellectual Property Act 2014)).
As noted on the Department for Business Innovation and Skills website it is expected that some measures within the Act will come into force in October 2014, with all the measures being implemented by late 2015. (more…)
Private copying and parody copyright exceptions removed from consideration [Updated]
Looks like we’ll be keeping those CDs for a little bit longer….. (Image from Wikipedia. User: Hellisp)
Labour MP Iain Wright tweeted yesterday afternoon that the exceptions for Personal Copies for Private Use and Quotation and Parody were “pulled from consideration” by the Government after the House of Lords Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. (more…)
Proposed UK legislation to legalise CD ripping (and other changes to copyright law)
Rip. Mix. Burn. Microwave? *
Last week, the government published the “final Exceptions to Copyright” regulations for consideration by parliament. The draft regulations propose changes that modernise UK copyright law in light of recommendations in the Hargreaves Review completed in 2011 (the same review that formed the basis of the Intellectual Property Bill currently in ping pong).
The proposed legislation comes in the form of five draft Statutory Instruments that would amend the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (CDPA) and covers Personal Copies for Private Use, Quotation and Parody, Disability, Public Administration and Research, Education, Libraries and Archives. The draft regulations will be debated in both Houses of Parliament and, if approved, they will come into force on 1 June 2014. (more…)
House of Commons & House of Lords organise game of Ping Pong (Intellectual Property Bill)
Inter-House Ping Pong
The Report Stage and the third reading of the Intellectual Property Bill took place on 12 March. After some significant discussion time over the last few weeks on all the provisions within the Bill, the IP Bill leaves the Commons with amendments to Clause 3 (Qualification criteria for Unregistered design right) and Clause 13 (the criminal offence for copying a registered design) only. A full list of the Commons Amendments can be found here and marked up versions of the two clauses in question are below.
Since the Commons has made amendments to the Bill, the Lords needs to have another look and (i) agree to the amendments; (ii) disagree with the amendments; or (iii) propose an alternative. When a Bill passes back between the two Houses it is referred to as “ping pong” (or whiff whaff if you prefer….). When the exact wording has been agreed by the two Houses then the Bill will be ready for royal assent. Whiff whaff is currently scheduled for 2 April 2014.
We have taken a quick look at the changes made by the Commons to the Bill down below.
Much Ado About UK Divisional Deadline Rules (Clarification from the UKIPO)
Following IPcopy’s post last week regarding the amendment to divisional deadline rules, ipcopymark reached out to the UK Intellectual Property Office to seek clarification over why the rule was being changed and whether the new rule will change any procedures at the UKIPO going forward.
The response from the UKIPO confirmed that there is not intended to be any change to the practice of filing divisional applications at the UKIPO. However, it was confirmed that incoming Rule 19 is being introduced to address a perceived flaw in the drafting of the current Rule 19 in which it could be argued that the two-month divisional period would be reset following the issuance of every communication under Section 18(4) Patents Act 1977. Whether or not you interpret current Rule 19 in this way, the incoming Rule 19 closes this potential loophole.
UK Changes Divisional Deadline Rules [Updated]
Lord Younger signed the SI on 8 March
As mentioned on Monday by IPKat, the rules regarding time limits for filing divisional patent applications from UK applications are being changed.
Under the current system, if a notice of compliance under Section 18(4) Patents Act 1977 is received, the applicant would have two months within which to file any divisionals. The two month period is being maintain under the amended rule, however, there will be an additional requirement to meet. Namely, that the parent must not have received any objections in an examination report.
This means that if the parent was found to meet the requirements for grant after more than one examination, there would be no opportunity to file divisionals once the notice of compliance is received.
What became of the Trunki? Magmatic v PMS at appeal
Back in September we reported on the result of the Magmatic v PMS case in which the Trunki faced off against the Kiddee Case at the High Court before the Hon. Mr Justice Arnold. At the High Court, PMS’s Kiddee case was found to infringe Magmatic’s Community Registered Design (CRD) for the Trunki.
However, PMS were given leave to appeal the case, and in January the case was heard in the Appeal Court before Lord Justice Moses, Lady Justice Black and Lord Justice Kitchin. The judgement has just been made available, and reveals that the Appeal Court reversed the High Court’s judgement, and ruled that the Kiddee case did not, in fact, create the same overall impression as Magmatic’s CRD, and so did not infringe. IPcopy takes you for another ride through the suitcase-animal fair…
IP Federation position on unregistered designs and the IP Bill
Parliamentary copyright images are reproduced with the permission of Parliament
The Intellectual Property Bill is still awaiting a date for the Report stage in the House of Commons. One of the parts of the Bill that got a lot a discussion time was, of course, Clause 13 which introduces criminal sanctions for the copying of registered designs.
One point of discussion in relation to Clause 13 was its possible expansion to include unregistered design rights. This is something that ACID (Anti-copying in Design) in particular is keen to see happen. IPcopy would prefer that Clause 13 wasn’t in the Intellectual Property Bill at all but the registered design sanctions of the clause appear to be here to stay. However, extending the clause to cover unregistered designs would, in this ipcopywriter’s opinion, be a disaster.
Recently, the IP Federation has issued a policy paper on this issue and they have the following to say on the matter: (more…)
IP in the Space Sector
Despite having had an interest in all things extra-terrestrial from an early age, I’ve been regularly dumb-struck by innovations in space-related technology both upstream (things in space or launching them there) and downstream (things down here using technology or data from space). Planet Labs are deploying a constellation of 28 tiny imaging satellites, each costing a fraction of the price of typical commercial satellites, promising near-global, daily imaging. Brokers like Spaceflight Services put these and other small satellites into orbit by squeezing them into the space inside launch vehicles around larger satellites. Terra Recovery image landfill sites from space, to figure out what their robots could mine from them. You can even buy your own satellite launched and ready to do your bidding, evil or otherwise (laser weapons not included).
Prompted by such giant leaps for space-faring mankind, and along with the likes of World IP Review and IPKat, we’ve been pondering some idiosyncrasies in IP in the space sector.
IPcopy 