Google has just lost a patent infringement suit in Texas (where else?) which could have nefarious consequences for open source development in the United States. A Texas jury has awarded Bedrock Computer Technologies $5 million USD when it found that the search engine giant had infringed one of its software Read more
It has been a bad week for the supporters of three strikes copyright policies in Europe. Although at some point last year the panorama looked good for them with the enactment of the Digital Economy Act, it seems like recent legal developments will make it considerably harder for a comprehensive Read more
Last year an Australian judge gave an important ruling in the landmark case Roadshow Films Pty Ltd v iiNet Limited [2010] FCA 24. You can read a full report on the case by yours truly here. iiNet is an Australian internet provider, which was sued by Australian film producer Roadshow Read more
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circle has decided on the interesting and important case of MDY v Blizzard. First some background information. In December 2006, Blizzard, the makers of World of Warcraft, sent a cease-and-desist letter to MDY, the makers of a cheat program called Glider. This Read more
The High Court of England and Wales has decided on an interesting test copyright case regarding linking and news aggregation by public relations firms. The case is that of Newspaper Licensing Agency Ltd v Meltwater Holding BV [2010] EWHC 3099 (Ch). The claimants in the case are the Newspaper Licensing Read more
Professor Séverine Dussollier of the University of Namur has emailed us to let us know about a new case involving Creative Commons in Belgium, and has kindly agreed to allow me to repeat her short analysis of the case here. She writes: A Belgian court today has applied the CC Read more
I have finally finished reading SAS Institute Inc v World Programming Ltd (the IPKat beat me to it). This is an important software copyright case for many reasons. After a decade of mostly software patent cases in English courts, it is refreshing to see a complex software case where it Read more
And here it is, this year’s GikII programme in its full glory: Final programme (uncertainty principle permitting) Sunday 27 June 18.00-onwards. Social event (because geeks have social lives too) UK premiere of Kembrew Mcleod’s “Copyright Criminals” Ethanol and a chance to engage in social interaction with other members of the Read more
The Hight Court in England has just delivered a ruling in the case of 20th Century Fox & Anor v Newzbin Ltd. Newzbin is a usenet binary file-sharing service that allows users to search and share material using the bulletin-board-like protocol. Wikipedia points out that “Usenet is distributed among a Read more
[Note: I know the title is not legally accurate, I hope my fellow lawyers will cut me some slack for reporting purposes ] (Via El Mundo) A judge in Barcelona has just delivered an astounding sentence with regards to sites that link to P2P content. The case was brought by Read more