Intellectual Property Rights

2 Jun 06 Court ruling protecting bloggers’ sources hailed as historic.

A Californian appeal court has decreed that online journalists and bloggers have the same right to protect their sources as other kinds of journalists. The ruling was issued in a case between the US electronics manufacturer Apple and websites that posted confidential information about some of its products. The Electronic Frontier Foundation’s (EFF’s) petition on behalf of three online journalists was upheld. See more on the Apple v. Does case, including FAQ’s.

13 May 05 Dutch anti-piracy unit targets ISPs.

The Dutch Protection Rights Entertainment Industry Netherlands (BREIN) will sue five Dutch ISPs who so far have refused to help to identify individuals suspected of illegally swapping copyrighted music.

2 Dec 05 EU data retention laws move closer.

The EU has taken a step closer to introducing new data retention laws after the European Parliament’s civil liberties committee backed proposals to store details of all Internet usage and telephone calls for up to 12 months.

13 Jul 07 European Patent Office says "no" to software patents debate

After an event attended by European Parliament members, representatives from industry and enterprise, NGOs and IP specialists, the EPO has published a statement that ‘All speakers welcomed unequivocal

5 Nov 04 Iranian Nobel Peace Prize winner sues US.

Shirin Ebadi claims her memoirs would be blocked in the US by regulations preventing publishing activities involving works by authors in countries such as Iran, Cuba and Sudan.

21 Jan 05 Software patents likely to be passed by EC Agriculture and Fishery Ministries.

The EU Software Patent Directive is to be adopted without a vote at a meeting on 24 January. This would introduce US-style unlimited software patentability.

14 Jan 05 The war on copyright communists.

Bill Gates wants software patents to protect his profit, not protect the public.

13 Jul 07 European Patent Office says 'no' to software patents debate

After an event attended by European Parliament members, representatives from industry and enterprise, NGOs and IP specialists, the EPO has published a statement that ‘All speakers welcomed unequivocally the opportunity to discuss the issue at a high level and made clear that a new CII (computer-implemented inventions) debate followed by legal modifications was neither necessary nor desirable.’

20 Jan 06 Fears raised over digital rights.

The National Consumer Council (NCC) has called for new laws to protect users’ rights to use digital music and movies.

19 Nov 04 Microsoft tells governments - Use Linux and you will be sued.

Microsoft’s Asian Government Leaders Forum was told that Linux violates more than 228 patents.

5 Feb 08 Microsoft's battle for the OOXML frmat

Microsoft executives accuse IBM of leading a campaign against their initiative to have its Office Open XML standard approved by the International Organization for Standardization. Nicos Tsilas, from Microsoft, said that IBM and the likes of the Free Software Foundation have been lobbying governments to mandate the rival OpenDocument Format (ODF) standard to the exclusion of any other format. As a member of European standards group Ecma, IBM voted against the approval of Office Open XML (OOXML) as an Ecma standard.

11 Mar 05 Pan-European conference on Intellectual Property (IP) is announced.

UK Government is backing the conference in November, which will seek to find 21st century solutions to protect our creativity, ideas and innovation.