Advocates of an unregulated internet overlook that privacy rights themselves emanate from rights of personality that include rights to IP. In 1908, Warren and Brandeis derived the modern right of privacy from long-established rights such as copyright, breach of contract and implied trust, slander, and libel, all stemming from a common source in the right ‘to be let alone’, ie the right to an ‘inviolate personality’. Today privacy interests, as well as their predecessor-rights, are challenged by seemingly insurmountable practical obstacles.
The internet is like Dr Strangelove's Doomsday Machine because both imply finality. An operative principle endorsed heartily by advocates of an unregulated internet is that ‘the remedy for speech is more speech’. However, in the context of online dissemination, more speech is no mitigating factor—it effectively amplifies the harm. Once posted on the internet, information (good or bad) quickly circulates to all corners of the globe, mirrored on multiple third-party servers for efficient distribution, and can be accessed by anyone in the world at any time, well into the indefinite future.
Privacy rights, properly understood, are being eroded in the name of internet freedom. Users come to accept a view of the internet as today's equivalent of the Roman Empire's Coliseum, where any kind of spectacle, no matter how debased, violent, injurious, or unfair, is viewable without effective limit.
But as Warren and Brandeis realized, the common law is resourceful. Court-authorized self-help, technological ‘white hat’ hacking, specially crafted contract provisions, and recourse to effective remedies can be employed to re-establish important rights of personality on the internet, including IP rights.
The question of the appropriate type of protection for personality rights has been the subject of discussion by a Commonwealth Caribbean court. This is poignant since the images of well-known Caribbean personalities, in particular, Usain Bolt, are being used throughout the world without payment of any royalties.
The question for the Supreme Court of Jamaica in Dino Michelle was whether the law of passing off was adequate to protect personality rights or whether it should recognize the tort of appropriation of personality in Jamaica. The court accepted that personality rights can be protected under both headings, bringing Jamaican law in line with that of other Commonwealth countries.
There is no longer a need to distort the law of passing off to provide protection for infringements of the image or personality rights of sports personalities in the Commonwealth Caribbean. A simple cause of action for misappropriation of personality would now suffice in accordance with the reasoning in Dino Michelle.
The Indian Premier League has gained immense popularity since it was launched by the Board of Control for Cricket India in 2008. The IPL as it is popularly known has a brand value of more than US$ 2 billion. Keeping this statistic in mind, the authors seek to explain the nuances of protecting IP in cricket. IP as we all know is the most important asset for any enterprise in the 21st century and enterprises with good IP protection systems have reaped huge profits.
As the name suggests, this article gives the reader an insight on what all should a cricket franchise do and what they have done till now to protect the intangible asset which may not be visible to the eye, but is the most important and vulnerable of them all.
With the amendment to the European Patent Convention which came into effect in December 2007, there arrived the possibility for those unhappy with a decision by one of the European Patent Office's Boards of Appeal to petition the Enlarged Board of Appeal to review the decision, and return the case for re-hearing.
The grounds on which such a petition could be founded are limited but for a patentee whose European Patent has been revoked, a petition represents the only possible way to have his patent reinstated. Unsurprisingly, the majority of petitioners in the first year and a half of the new system have been patentees. Only 1 petition out of the 16 disposed of has been successful and the Enlarged Board of Appeal has shown itself to be expeditious but firm.
In this article, the decisions thus far taken by the Enlarged Board of Appeal are reviewed as are the petitions which are either pending or have been withdrawn in order to draw guidance as to how to avoid the necessity of petitioning or how to increase the chances of a petition being successful.