According to the recent judgment of the Polish Supreme Court of 30 June 2008, act signature I KZP 8/08, PDF file, in Polish language, buying counterfeited goods is not fencing. For more information and commentary please refer to Class46 website.
I did a post at class46.blogspot.com website.
The new decision will allow companies to register their brands as generic top-level domain names (TLDs). For instance, Microsoft could apply to have a TLD such as ‘.msn’, Apple could apply for ‘.mac’, and Google for ‘.goog’
You’ve probably noticed that I do not post so often lately. That’s because I’m involved in different projects. I was also invited to join the Editorial Board (Copyright, Related Rights and Designs (including sui generis database right)) of Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice which is published by Oxford University Press. But I promise, I will write and post some information here.
Nice action. Check www.snideuk.org website.
SnideUK is a British business with a turnover of over GBP10 billion per year. You might not have heard of us before, you probably do not recognise our logo; there’s a reason for that!
We are a company that does not feel the need to draw attention to ourselves. We do not advertise. We do not plaster our branding all over the place. We just get on with doing our business.
Our core business is of producing and selling a wide range of poor quality and dangerous products, and we are proud to say we excel in this field taking a particular note to pay no attention whatsoever to hazards, risks and consumer rights.
SnideUK is a subsidiary of SnideInc and is part of the Global Counterfeiting Network (GCN) an informal confederation of like-minded organisations encouraging trade in ripped-off tat and sharing best practice in keeping out our products and personnel out of the hands of local, national and international law enforcement agencies.
The judgment of the U.S. Court of Appeals for 10th Circuit in case Meshwerks, Inc. v. Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A., Inc., No. 06-4222 (10th Cir. Jul. 17 2008), made me thinking a lot lately and it would be a cause for a heart attack of one of my good clients (although it is a legal entity) if analogical case was decided in a similar fashion by a Polish court. You may ask what has happened?
Plaintiff - Meshwerks, Inc., was hired by defendant - Grace & Wild, Inc. to create digital models of several cars manufactured by Toyota. Meshwerks obtained copyright registration certificates covering the models. Meshwerks contended that Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A., Inc., Grace & Wild, 3D Recon, L.L.C., and Saatchi & Saatchi North America, Inc. impermissibly used the models that Meshwerks created. Meshwerks also alleged that Grace & Wild failed to fully pay Meshwerks for the digital modeling that it has performed. United States District Court,D. Utah,Central Division simply ruled.
Although a great deal of skill and effort was involved in the creation of Meshwerks’s three-dimensional digital models, those models do not meet the originality requirement established by copyright law. Accordingly, the models are not entitled to copyright protection. As a result, the Toyota Defendants are entitled to summary judgment on Meshwerks’s copyright claims. Further, the court declines to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over Meshwerks’s breach of contract claim and that claim is therefore dismissed.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for 10th Circuit has affirmed above mentioned judgment.
Although we hold that Meshwerks’ digital, wire-frame models are insufficiently original to warrant copyright protection, we do not turn a blind eye to the fact that digital imaging is a relatively new and evolving technology and that Congress extended copyright protection to “original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression, now known or later developed.” 17 U.S.C. § 102(a) (emphasis added). A Luddite might make the mistake of suggesting that digital modeling, as was once said of photography, allows for nothing more than “mechanical reproduction of the physical features or outlines of some object… and involves no originality of thought or any novelty in the intellectual operation connected with its visible reproduction in [the] shape of a picture.” Burrow-Giles, 111 U.S. at 59. Clearly, this is not so.
Digital modeling can be, surely is being, and no doubt increasingly will be used to create copyrightable expressions. Yet, just as photographs can be, but are not per se, copyrightable, the same holds true for digital models. There’s little question that digital models can be devised of Toyota cars with copyrightable features, whether by virtue of unique shading, lighting, angle, background scene, or other choices. The problem for Meshwerks in this particular case is simply that the uncontested facts reveal that it wasn’t involved in any such process, and indeed contracted to provide completely unadorned digital replicas of Toyota vehicles in a two-dimensional space. For this reason, we do not envision any “chilling effect” on creative expression based on our holding today, and instead see it as applying to digital modeling the same legal principles that have come, in the fullness of time and with an enlightened eye, to apply to photographs and other media.
Originality is the sine qua non of copyright. If the basic design reflected in a work of art does not owe its origin to the putative copyright holder, then that person must add something original to that design, and then only the original addition may be copyrighted. In this case, Meshwerks copied Toyota’s designs in creating digital, wire-frame models of Toyota’s vehicles. But the models reflect, that is, “express,” no more than the depiction of the vehicles as vehicles. The designs of the vehicles, however, owe their origins to Toyota, not to Meshwerks, and so we are unable to reward Meshwerks’ digital wire-frame models, no doubt the product of significant labor, skill, and judgment, with copyright protection. The judgment of the district court is affirmed, and defendants’ request for attorneys’ fees is denied.
As usually, both Bill Patry and Marty Schwimmer provide useful and helpful comments.
Check two Polish webpages www.yeslogo.pl and www.logo.wp.pl and compare them with www.logoyes.com website.
Trade mark registration in Poland - 2196,00 PLN Brutto.
I reccomend you to check this graphic table below with a specification of services. One of such services include “examination of patent’s clarity of a trade mark” whatever it means.
Math formulas to make a logotype are available at www.logologos.blogspot.com website.
Art and Ads. Funny remixes available at www.worth1000.com website.
I browsed through specific or peculiar artworks of Rob Nance that are available at his website - www.artforrobots.com. I started to think more when I saw “Poseable Paper Pope”. Parody. Bad taste? De gustibus non disputandum est. Publicity right? It is quite relaxing situation for Mr Nance that Vatican does not sue so eagerly as it usually happens in the US. Just check such case as White v. Samsung, 971 F. 2d 1395 (9th Cir. 1992). Ms Vanna White (I have to add that Magda Masny was her counterpart in Poland) has sued Samsung for using her “image” in Samsung’s ads. I really really recommend you to read this judgment. Below, on the left, you’ll find a black and white image of Ms White and on the right, her “likeness” that was used in Samsung advertising campaign.
Judge Alex Kozinski wrote opinion for Vanna White v. Samsung, 989 F.2d 1512, 26 U.S.P.Q.2d 1362, 21 Media L. Rep. 1330 (9th Cir. 1993), which was the petition for rehearing in the above mentioned case. You may already know that I like his style and I often cite his profound deliberations as I did it in the post titled “Oh, those Internet’s contracts“.
I sometimes ask myself where the inspiration ends. The Polish version of my post also deals with some other less or more legal issues but I do not think that informing my English readers about Polish companies which use at least “strange TOS” of Twitter’s clones is relevant. I’m also not sure if its good to spare some money from the project’s budget that one could spend for a legal advice or some consultations with lawyers to answer the question if the TOS you provide are written in accordance with the law.
Today, I read an old article available at www.nytimes.com website (January 2007) about Levi’s actions connected with protection of a trade mark consisting of a design for pant’s pockets and I immediately recalled myself a judgment of the Distric Administratice Court in Warsaw of 22 February 2006. Act signature VI SA/Wa 805/05.
Contrasted trade marks that are meant as signs for clothes (among other things for pants) resemble to each other to the extent that it may lead into the confusion of a consumer as regard to origin of goods in the regular course of trade (as defined in the article 9 sec. 1 pt 1 and 2 of the Act of 31 January 1985 on Trademarks (Dziennik Ustaw No 5, pos. 17 with later changes) if both marks include horizontal seams crossing down the pocket which in its shapes reasemble seagull’s (eagle) wings and where such element is simultaneously predominant for both signs.