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E-promulgation of Polish law

January 5th, 2010, Tomasz Rychlicki

The Act of 10 September 2009 on amending the Law on the promulgation of normative acts and some other legal acts, Journal of Laws (Dziennik Ustaw) of 2009, No 190 item 1473, came into force on 1 January 2010. According to the amendments, the Journal of Laws and the Polish Monitor or normative acts and other legal acts contained in them, including judgments, are made available freely for inspection and to download in the form of an electronic document from the website of the Government Legislative Center.

The minister responsible for informatization will also determine, by a regulation, the technical requirements to be met by electronic documents addressed for the announcement, containing normative acts and other acts, including judgments, taking into account the need to preserve the unity of supplied electronic documents and their possible transformation for the issue of the official journal.

It is out now!

July 14th, 2009, Tomasz Rychlicki

My dear readers. All P.T. readers. I would like to draw your attention to the International Free and Open Source Software Law Review. It is an absolutely free publication on legal aspects of free and open source software. The first issue is available for download (both HTML or PDF versions) directly from its website. There, you’ll find couple of interesting articles. In particular, I recommend Shane Coughlan’s and Andrew Martin Katz’s article titled “Introducing the Risk Grid“. I will also immodestly mention that from the very beginning I was involved in the creation of the IFOSS L. Rev. and I am currently a member of the editorial board. Of course, I invite everyone to write for his periodical. Please do not hesitate to submit your papers.

There is another “Polish theme” in the IFOSS L. Rev. Great logotype and covers for the journal were created pro bono by my good friend Tomasz Politański.

What does the Court cite?

June 3rd, 2009, Tomasz Rychlicki

The Supreme Court of the Republic of Poland in a judgment of 27 February 2009, case file V CSK 337/08, said that as a subject of copyright law have been considered (…) train timetables, cookbooks, patterns and forms. The Court quoted the judgement of the Supreme Court of 8 November 1932, Zb OSN 1933, poz.7.

The problem is that the judgment that was issued on 8 November 1932 does not exist. As Krzysztof Siewicz noted in his comment available at Piotr Waglowski’s website the same signature is given by Professors Barta and Markiewicz, in Commentary published by ABC (argument 26 on article 1, p. 75, Ed III).

Comparative law – literally, word for word

January 15th, 2009, Tomasz Rychlicki

Recent changes in the Polish Criminal Code regarding “computer crimes” that were introduced by the the Act to amend the Act – the Criminal Code and certain other acts of 24 October 2008, Journal of Laws (Dziennik Ustaw) No. 214, item 1344, which entered into force on 18 December 2008.

Chapter XXXIII. Offences against the protection of information

Article 265. § 1. Whoever discloses or, in violation of the law, uses information which constitutes a state secret

shall be subject to the penalty of deprivation of liberty for a term of between 3 months and 5 years.

§ 2. If the information specified in § 1 has been disclosed to a person acting in the name of or for a foreign entity, the perpetrator

shall be subject to the penalty of deprivation of liberty for a term of between 6 months and 8 years.

§ 3. Whoever unintentionally discloses the information specified in § 1, with which he has become acquainted in the performance of his official function or authorisation delegated to him

shall be subject to a fine, the penalty of restriction of liberty or the penalty of deprivation of liberty for up to one year.

Article 266. § 1. Whoever, in violation of the law or obligation he has undertaken, discloses or uses information with which he has become acquainted with in connection with the function or work performed, or public, community, economic or scientific activity pursued

shall be subject to a fine, the penalty of restriction of liberty or the penalty of deprivation of liberty for up to 2 years.

§ 2. A public official who discloses to an unauthorised person information which is an official secret or information with which he has become acquainted in the performance of his official duties and whose disclosure can endanger a legally protected interest

shall be subject to the penalty of deprivation of liberty for up to 3 years.

§ 3. The prosecution of the offence specified in § 1 shall occur on a motion of the injured person.

Article 267. § 1. Whoever, without being authorised to do so, acquires information not destined for him, by opening a sealed letter, or connecting to a wire that transmits information or by breaching electronic or bypass, electronic, magnetic, information or other special protection for that information

shall be subject to a fine, the penalty of restriction of liberty or the penalty of deprivation of liberty for up to 2 years.

§ 2. The same punishment shall be imposed on anyone, who without being authorised to do so acquires access to whole or part of an information system.

§ 3. The same punishment shall be imposed on anyone, who, in order to acquire information to which he is not authorised to access, installs or uses tapping, visual detection or other special equipment.

§ 4. The same punishment shall be imposed on anyone, who imparts to another person the information obtained in the manner specified in § 1-3 discloses to another person.

§ 5. The prosecution of the offence specified in § 1–4 shall occur on a motion of the injured person.

Article 268. § 1. Whoever, not being himself authorised to do so, destroys, damages, deletes or alters a record of essential information or otherwise prevents or makes it significantly difficult for an authorised person to obtain knowledge of that information,

shall be subject to a fine, the penalty of restriction of liberty or the penalty of deprivation of liberty for up to 2 years.

§ 2. If the act specified in § 1 concerns the record on an electronic information carrier, the perpetrator shall be subject to the penalty of deprivation of liberty for up to 3 years.

§ 3. Whoever, by committing an act specified in § 1 or 2, causes a significant loss of property

shall be subject to the penalty of deprivation of liberty for a term of between 3 months and 5 years.

§ 4. The prosecution of the offence specified in § 1-3 shall occur on a motion of the injured person.

Art. 268a. § 1. Whoever, without being authorised to do so, destroys, damages, removes, changes lub makes an access to data difficult or in a significant way disrupts or prevents from the automatic process, gathering or transmission of such data,

shall be subject to the penalty of deprivation of liberty for up to 3 years.

§ 3. Whoever, by committing an act specified in § 1, causes a significant loss of property

shall be subject to the penalty of deprivation of liberty for a term of between 3 months and 5 years.

§ 3. The prosecution of the offence specified in § 1 or 2 shall occur on a motion of the injured person.

Article 269. § 1. Whoever destroys, deletes or changes a record on an electronic information carrier, having a particular significance for national defence, transport safety, operation of the government or other state authority or localgovernment, or interferes with or prevents automatic collection and transmission of such information

shall be subject to the penalty of deprivation of liberty for a term of between 6 months and 8 years.

§ 2. The same penaly should apply to a person who commits offences mentioned in § 1, by destroying or replacing the information carrier or by destroying or damaging a device serving for automatic processing, gathering or transfering of information data.

Art. 269a. Whoever, without being authorised to do so, by transmission, destroy, removing, damaging or changing information data, in significant manner disrupts the work of a computer system or a teleinformatic network,

shall be subject to the penalty of deprivation of liberty for a term of between 3 months up to 5 years

Art. 269b. § 1. Whoever, produces, acquires, sells off or makes available to other persons devices or computer software adapted to perform a crime mentioned in art. 165 § 1 pt 4, art. 267 § 2, art. 268a § 1 or § 2 in connection with § 1, art. 269 § 2 or art. 269a, and computer passwords, access codes or other data that allow for the access to information stored in a computer system or teleinformatic network,

shall be subject to the penalty of deprivation of liberty for up to 3 years.

§ 2 In case of a conviction for an offense referred to in § 1, the court rules the forfeiture of items, and may decide their forfeiture if they were not the property of the perpetrator.

Here is also one ODT, 14KB, file with both versions. Please send your comments regarding the translation.

Please pay more attention

October 7th, 2008, Tomasz Rychlicki

Almost every day, I read the electronic version of Polish newspaper Rzeczpospolita. I think that it is a really professional magazine. I do not want to discuss the issue of paid archives – it’s their vision of publishing and how to do the business. However, there are sometimes errors that appear in different articles and it discourages me from reading the whole newspaper.

It challenged before the court of first instance a decision of European patent clerks (OHIM) regarding the refusal of cancellation of one registration of a trademark.

The emphasis of mine. This quote comes from the article written by Michał Kosiarski, entitled “Kurier równorzędny z listem poleconym“, in which, the author discussed the latest judgment of the Court of Justice in case C-144/07 P, K-Swiss v. OHIM.

At the same time I ask my P.T. readers to let me know of any mistakes you find on my website.

Categories: Judgments of Court of Justice of the EC | legal research | trademark law.

“Protected” PDF

September 21st, 2008, Tomasz Rychlicki

Eric Goldman wrote about the judgment in Saadi v. Maroun, 2008 WL 4194824 (MD Fla.. Sept. 9, 2008), while pointing to the “protected” PDF file with complaints in the aformentioned case. Someone tried to “protect/hide” personal data of one of the parties. I suggest to perform a simple action: select and copy the black section and paste it into any text file. It’s a post I wrote a propos of certain comments which appeared on Piotr Waglowski website.

Categories: US law | legal research | personal data.

Finally, I got this judgment

September 18th, 2008, Tomasz Rychlicki

You will probably recall one of my previous posts entitled “Give me this judgment!“. Well, finally, I got it. After sending fax message at 11:57 am (CET) I received 12 pages document containing the judgment of the Supreme Court of 11 March 2008, case file II CSK 539/07, at 12:31. It was sent directly to my mailbox. Of course I decided to publish this judgment at orzecznictwo.net website. It is in Polish language but I promise to write a short comment note for my English readers soon.

Categories: Polish Supreme Court | Polish law | case law | legal research | personal rights.

Anonymous personal data

September 12th, 2008, Tomasz Rychlicki

There is an ongoing discussion at Piotr Waglowski’s website within the post entitled “GIODO: first name, surname, photo, school, class and graduation year – are not personal data…” concerning a recent decision of the Inspector General for Personal Data Protection (GIODO) of

September 3, (the date is illegible on the scan I’ve got), with a signature (again illegible) DOLiS/DEC 515/08/22857

However, I would like to write about deleting parties’ personal data from judgments decided during administrative proceedings. Just for example, see judgment of the Polish Supreme Administrative Court of 20 November 2007, case file II GSK 138/07 which is available only in Polish language.

The Supreme Administrative Court composed of the President: Judge Jan Kacprzak, after hearings of 20 November 2007, during non public session, in the Chamber of Commerce, on the motion of P. P. L. “K.” J. K. S. j. from L. regarding the separate division of a cassation complaint brought by R. B. G. with headquaters in F. an S., A. against the judgement of the Voivodeship Administrative Court in W. of 7 September 2006, case act signature VI SA/Wa 557/06 on the complaints of P. P. L. “K.” J. K. S. j. and R. B. G. with headquaters in F. an S., regarding the decision of the Polish Patent Office of November [...] 2005, No [...] on the invalidation proceedings of the right of protection of a trade mark, decides: to reject the motion.

So far so good and completely anonymously right? And I know… this text is badly translated and very complicated for non-Polish speaking readers and lawyers. Anyway, to have the story linked somehow I suggest you to visit the website of the Polish Patent Office (PPO). First, go under the “Press” link, where PPO, in accordance with a statutory license (or not), in the context of the current publications on industrial property law issues appearing in newspapers and web portals has made available neat news compilation of 12 September 2008, PDF file, which reads:

GAZETA PRAWNA, 12.09.2008, p. 9
“Even the renowned trade mark may be invalidated” (more…); author Joanna Barańska.
The reputation of the trade mark is irrelevant to the invalidation proceedings – a case of invalidation proceedings of the international trade mark registration of Red Bull sign in class 30 – for ice cream, confectionery products, etc. (case act signature II GSK 138/07).

I added the link to Gazeta Prawna’s article for the convenience of my respectable readers. With regard to personal data I recommend you to check the trademark database of Polish Patent Office and to perform a search with the fololowing criteria used in the advanced search options (TLP ZawWyr ‘ “Red” and “bull”‘) AND (NIC ZawWyr’30′).

Applicant/owner: Red Bull GmbH, Fuschl am See, AT
Plenipotentiary: Drzewiecki, Tomaszek & Wspólnicy Spółka Jawna Jarosz Wojciech, Warszawa, PL

Give me this judgment!

September 5th, 2008, Tomasz Rychlicki

In the era of the Internet and processing of documents in digital form, Tomasz Rychlicki must go to the Supreme Court to buy stamps for the sum of 12 Polish złoty. He has to stick these stamps on the sheet of paper on which he also has to include – write down – the signature of the judgment of the Supreme Court of 11 March 2008, case act signature II CSK 539/07, which he knows about only from information made available in the Bulletin No. 7/08 of 8 August 2008, PDF file, that in laconic way only says that:

Username (nickname) which is used by a person in Internet services is a subject to legal protection on the same grounds as the protection of personal name, pseudonym or company.

Tomasz Rychlicki has to write his e-mail address on the same sheet of paper together with judgement’s act signature and stuck and cross out (sic) stamps. When he sends this sheet of paper by fax, Tomasz Rychlicki receives the ruling via e-mail sent to the specified e-mail address. Nice ladies are working in the Supreme Court, who are really willing to help, but some procedures are set out by ******** (autocensorship). Piotr Waglowski has also wrote some comments about this judgement. After our brief conversation I was “elected” to get the text of this judgment.

Categories: Polish Supreme Court | Polish law | legal research.

May 6th, 2008, Tomasz Rychlicki

I started an academic platform called lawinit.com together with dr Wojciech Wiewiórowski and thanks to great help of Marcin Sochacki and Marcin Czerwiński. We think about English version too so if you are interested in such academic cooperation then you are warmly welcomed. Meanwhile, among other things there are great translations of German courts judgments provided by Justyna Kurek.

The law is not for the people!

April 16th, 2008, Tomasz Rychlicki

I found it in the post available at boingboing.net website.

The State of Oregon is sending out cease and desist letters to sites like Justia and Public.Resource.Org that have been posting copies of Oregon laws, known as the Oregon Revised Statutes.

We’ve sent Oregon back two letters. The first reviews the law and explains to the Legislative Counsel why their assertion of copyright over the state statutes is particularly weak, from both a common law perspective and from their own enabling legislation.

The position of the Legislative Counsel is that their public access obligations have been fulfilled by their web site. However, their web site has over 500,000 HTML errors, does not meet Section 508 accessibility requirements, has no metadata, as our second letter points out.

Particularly galling is the fact that Thomson West has also made a copy of these statutes and has done so without a commercial license, but the Legislative Counsel explicitly told Tim Stanley of Justia that they weren’t going to send cease and desist letters to West. Evidently, it is much easier to pick on the little guys.

Oregon is not unique in asserting copyright over state law, but they are definitely one of the more aggressive in this kind of FUD campaign. Justia and Public.Resource.Org have decided this is an important issue to resolve and we’re going to hold firm on this. Anybody else who is making a mirror of the Oregon law should drop me a line and let me know.

The original letter can be found at scribd.com website. Would you like to know how it looks in Poland? In short. The Polish Act on Authors Rights and Neighbouring Rights – ARNR – (in Polish: ustawa o prawie autorskim i prawach pokrewnych) of 4 February 1994, published in Journal of Laws (Dziennik Ustaw) No 24, item 83, consolidated text of 16 May 2006, Journal of Laws (Dziennik Ustaw) No 90, item 631 with later amendments.

Art. 4. The following shall not be protected by copyright:
1) normative texts and the drafts thereof,
2) official documents, documentary material, devices and symbols,
3) descriptions of patents and other protection titles,
4) simple press news.

You may perform the legal interpretation for yourself.

Class46

February 25th, 2008, Tomasz Rychlicki

Finally, after remaining anonymous for some time, I am allowed to introduce to you the website of Class46. It is an experimental site dedicated to European trade mark law and practice by friends and supporters of MARQUES. I was invited by Jeremy Phillips to join this project. You will find there lots of news that are presented by a very small but also super-extra-nice team. My friends are Birgit Clark, Frédéric Glaize Julia Holden, Ignacio Marqués and Gino van Roeyen. I am really happy to be a part of this group. I learn from them a lot. I hope you will also enjoy reading Class46.

Categories: Class46 post | EU law | legal research | trademark law.