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Music copyright and the Internet

The EU has taken a big leap towards implementing WIPO’s two December 1996 copyright treaties.

Recent patent court decisions and also rules of patent practice issued by the US Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) are changing how the wide spectrum of entities that use computers to conduct fiscal businesses will operate them in the United States, because they now can obtain and assert reliable patent rights against competitors. This legal landscape is evolving from court decisions spanning more than 20 years that define a patent-based framework within which computer technology in particular, computer software can be protected. Software owners have sought such protection because of: (a) recognized limitations in copyrights which protect expression (ie literal lines of computer code), but not ideas (ie the constructs software implement); (b) the substantial financial value software gained during the same decades; and (c) the continuing growth of the businesses that are dependent on computers. It is estimated that by 2001 Internet commerce in the United States will be worth $200 billion. Initially patent protection was not sought for software because of the amount of time involved in obtaining patent rights and also the fact that the Supreme Court (the US court of last resort) has consistently held that laws of nature, natural phenomena, and abstract ideas are unpatentable subject matter. Software owners perceived tremendous commercial benefits from patent rights, and these perceptions sustained efforts to seek enforceable frameworks for obtaining reliable patent rights.

By means of Act 50/1998, dated December 30, on Tax, Administrative and Social Measures, which develops and executes General State Budgets for 1999, the Spanish Government has amended both Act 11/1986, dated March 20, on patents and utility models and Act 32/1988, dated November 10, which deals with trade marks. The object of these amendments is, first of all, to establish time limits for procedures filed before the Spanish Trade Marks and Patents Office. Secondly, a new Article 87 is added to Act 32/1988, on trade marks. This article establishes the national rules concerning the transformation in a national trade mark of an international trade mark registered in Spain by virtue of the Madrid Protocol, and which has been cancelled by virtue of Article 6.4 of the Protocol.

The need for a clear problem and solution was demonstrated in a recent decision by Stockholm´ s Tingsrätt (The Stockholm City Court), the first instance for all patent litigation in Sweden. The problem/solution approach is one of the basic principles in European patent practice. In case No. T7-19-97 the validity of European patent 0138152 was tried by the City Court.

On July 23 1998 the Trade Mark Law No. 84/1998 came into force. Section 88 of this Law provides that if a trade mark is infringed, the owner may ask, by way of interlocutory injunction, for the immediate cessation of any infringement until the main trial case is settled and the decision is final.

Exhaustion of rights, as an exception to the rights afforded by IP laws, has been recognized in the laws of many countries in the world. In general terms, it implies that the owner of intellectual property rights cannot oppose the further trading of products embodying its rights, if and to the extent that such products have been marketed by or with its consent. Exhaustion of rights marks the border between intellectual property rights and those of the buyer of a product or copy embodying the IP rights.

Vietnam’s days as a piracy blackspot could be numbered following the introduction of an agreement with the US on December 24 1998.

On December 3 1993, the European Union Authorities filed their first proposal of Regulation and Directive relevant to the legal protection of designs. On October 28 1998, Directive 98/71/CE was eventually published, to be validated on a domestic basis in each member state by October 28 2001, and which consists of 21 Whereas... and of 20 sections. This demonstrates though it is widely known anyway how many difficulties there are and remain to be overcome to harmonize design laws which vary throughout the European Union.

An intellectual property owner faces difficulties when trying to recover full damage compensation from an infringer in Korea due to three main reasons: