While gearing up for Halloween weekend, you might have missed the IPKat last week. Here's what was covered:

Copyright

Image by Riana Harvey
Eleonora Rosati commented on Kwantum, a case decided by the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) a few days ago. In line with the Advocate General's Opinion, the CJEU held that EU Member States lack discretion to adopt reciprocity clauses under Article 2(7) of the Berne Convention. The Court further clarified that, as the InfoSoc Directive grants copyright protection to original works without regard to their country of origin, the EU opted not to exercise the option of implementing reciprocity clauses.

Kevin Bercimuelle-Chamot reported on a decision by the Paris Court of Appeal concerning the copyrightability of architectural works, in the relevant case, an orangery. The Court reaffirmed that French copyright law protects original architectural works. However, after a thorough analysis, it concluded that the orangery lacked originality, as it did not display sufficient artistic creativity or reflections of the author’s personality. Since the choices made by the author were dictated by construction rules, the court eventually rejected the copyright infringement claims brought by Va Evènements.

Community Design

Katfriend Henning Hartwig (Bardehle Pagenberg; Chair of the Committee for Design Law of the German Association for the Protection of Intellectual Property) informed The IPKat readers about the GRUR Committee for Design Law’s comments regarding a preliminary ruling referred to the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU). The referring court (Fővárosi Törvényszék, Hungary) sought interpretation of certain provisions of the Council Regulation (EC) No 6/2002 of 12 December 2001 on Community designs. After identifying the questions referred to the CJEU and noting that the referring court appeared to have overlooked established case law -since the CJEU had already interpreted most of the issues raised- the GRUR Committee offered its own interpretations of the provisions in question. The GRUR Committee's complete submission can be found here and here.

Events

Eleonora Rosati reminded The IPKat readers of our upcoming webinar, “Image rights in the age of AI: Less is more or more is better?” which will be kindly hosted by Bird&Bird LLP in two days! If you are curious about protecting one’s persona in the age of AI, deepfakes, and digital replicas, then do not forget to register here!