Two similar, but nevertheless quite different, cases brought before the Court of Justice of the EU and the U.S. Court of Appeal for the Federal Circuit allow to compare the scope of patent protection for genetically modified organisms on both sides of the Atlantic. In the EU case, Monsanto v. Cefetra (C-428/08), Monsanto had first relied […]
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Seeds protection: when Monsanto tests the limits of patent in the EU and the U.S.
By 11 December 2011 27
LEGO: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde?
By 13 October 2011 5
Regarding intellectual property management, LEGO may seem to suffer from some form of personality disorder. Over the years, the company has indeed been oscillating between very open and very closed attitudes. On the “open side”, LEGO appears nowadays as a champion of crowd-sourcing and of user-based innovation. LEGO’s recent Cuusoo project is a nice example of crowd-sourcing design, whereby the […]
What can you find in a cartoon? About the rationale of intellectual property
By 29 September 2011 22
I thank a friendly blog (S.I.lex) devoted to IT and IP issues for drawing my attention to the above cartoon. It originates from a funny site where Mimi & Eunice discuss very serious issues of Intellectual Property. Also worth to be underlined: the traditional ‘copyright notice’ (©, name, date) is replaced by a lovely: […]
A paperback version of “Intellectual Property and Theories of Justice” (Palgrave, Nov. 2010)
By 5 December 2010 0
The book “Intellectual Property and Theories of Justice” edited by Axel Gosseries, Alain Marciano and myself is available in paperback since November 2010. Please visit the page of the publisher here. The book benefits from a positive review of Richard Posner, now Judge at the US Court or Appeal, Seventh Circuit, formerly Professor at the […]
Legal responses to online piracy
By 27 November 2010 35
Yesterday (November 26, 2010), the New York Times published two short articles concerning online piracy of digital goods. The first article (Swedish Court Upholds Convictions in File-Sharing Case) reports that an appeals court in Sweden upheld the copyright convictions of three men behind Pirate Bay, a popular file-sharing site that remains in operation despite attempts to […]
What to think of ‘patent trolls’?
By 11 November 2010 0
Early october this year, Apple was condemned by a US court to pay $625.5 million damages to a small company, Mirror Worlds LLC, for infringing three patents related to how files are displayed on several Apple’s products (iPhone, iPod and Macbooks). Apple is currently challenging this verdict (see here for more). A question that has […]
Just released: “Digital Piracy: Theory”
By 28 October 2010 0
In “Digital Piracy: Theory” (click here to download), Paul Belleflamme and Martin Peitz review recent theoretical contributions on digital piracy. The article starts by elaborating on the reasons for intellectual property protection, by reporting a few facts about copyright protection, and by examining reasons to become a digital pirate. Next, it provides an exploration of […]
The increasing role of intangibles evidenced by … theft numbers!
By 18 October 2010 0
Purse thefts today! Today only? And what does the purse of companies contain nowadays? For the first time, reported thefts of information and electronic data have surpassed physical property losses as the biggest crime problem, according to the Kroll annual global fraud survey (as reported by the Financial Times, 18 Oct. 2010). “This is a […]
Harry Potter is back on the copyright front. Do you want to prepare a survey of cases around the world?
By 14 October 2010 1
The IPKat, the famous IP blog founded by the veteran blogger Jeremy Philips, today reports about a case involving Willy the Wizard v. Harry Potter. As summarized by Jeremy, “it is alleged that JK Rowling infringed the copyright in Adrian Jacobs’ Willy the Wizard in the course of writing Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.” […]
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