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Clause Ambiguity and Contract Disputes: Insights from Capita v IBM (2023)
Introduction This case relates to (as stated by the judge) a “rare dispute as to the construction of a contract where one or both parties do not make some appeal to matters of factual matrix to support their construction”. Nevertheless, i...
Clearview AI victorious on a fact specific exemption but what does this judgment mean for the extra territorial effect of the UK GDPR
Clearview AI victorious on a fact specific exemption but what does this judgment mean for the extra territorial effect of the UK GDPR, in particular Article 3(2)(b)? (Clearview AI Inc v The Information Commissioner [2023] UKFTT 00819 (GRC)) Summary...
The Online Safety Bill*
*The Online Safety Act became law on 27 October 2023. Please see our article about the new law below. Following a long gestation, the Online Safety Bill (OSB) has been published with the intention that it come into effect later this month. It is a b...
Mobility-as-a-Service – have you protected your assets from the competition?
Mobility-as-a-Service is envisioned as the tool to bring about a greener and more sustainable world and the backbone to ensuring people have a seamless customer experience in achieving it. However, to achieve this is not without its challenges, both le...
Reining IT in – Differing Approaches to AI Regulation in the UK and the EU?
Introduction When researchers at Darmouth College coined the term ‘artificial intelligence’ (“AI”) in a research proposal in 1955, they could hardly have imagined the explosive impact the then-fledgling technology would have so...
The Deep Non-Thinker
Lock up your authors! ChatGPT is here! And it’s coming for your IP! The internet is awash with content written about, or written by, the new chat-bot in town, ChatGPT. But what is ChatGPT? And what does it mean for the IP world? ChatGPT, along ...
Tulip Mania - Can an individual or group be said to have de-facto control over a cryptocurrency network?
(Tulip Trading Limited v Van der Laan and Others [2023] EWCA Civ 83) In the Dutch Golden Age, circa 1634, the price of tulip bulbs temporarily reached extraordinarily high levels as market speculators fought to profit from this newly-introduced luxury...
Not one for the “gram” – Instagram’s attempt to “swipe” away potentially similar trade mark name
Background The appellant ("Instagram") appeals against a decision (“the Decision”) of George Salthouse, a hearing officer of the UK Intellectual Property Office (the "Hearing Officer"). The Hearing Officer allowed the word mark "Soundgram"...
Tulip - a cautionary tale. Do software developers owe a fiduciary duty to users of the code they write? (Tulip Trading v Van Der Laan and Others)
Summary On 3 February 2023, the Court of Appeal in England ruled that the dispute between the Claimant, Tulip Trading Limited (“Tulip Trading”) and the Defendants, who are sixteen bitcoin developers involved with the development of blockch...
Oxford University Innovation Limited v Oxford Nanoimaging Limited – a tale of pies and slices
Summary In a very long and detailed judgment, Daniel Alexander KC, sitting as a High Court judge, examined a number of issues relating to successful inventions arising out of research work carried out by an individual who was at the relevant times a r...
The European Data Protection Board (EDPB) publishes its decision on Meta’s legal basis for its use of personalised adverts
Summary On 12 January 2023, the EDPB published its decision (which was actually made on 5 December 2022) (the “Decision”) on the dispute between the Irish Data Protection Commissioner (IDPC) and a number of its equivalent supervisory autho...
Alleged copyright infringement in the famous love story that inspired Doctor Zhivago
Background Anna Pasternak (“Pasternak”) is the Claimant and author of Lara: The Untold Love Story That Inspired Doctor Zhivago (“Lara”). Lara is a non-fiction, historical book that was published in the United Kingdom in August ...
The WaterRower managed to row back from being struck out
In the recent strike out application heard on 28 July 2022, Waterrower (UK) Limited v Liking Limited (T/A Topiom) [2022] EWHC 2084 (IPEC), David Stone, sitting as deputy high court judge, considered whether a rowing machine could be considered to be a ...
Artificial Intelligence and Intellectual Property – the Government’s Plans to amend UK law – or not!
Background On 28 June 2022, the UK Government published its updated conclusions to the consultation it launched in October 2021 which looked at how patents and copyright, which respectively are intended to reward inventors and creators by protecting in...
The Club isn’t the Best Place (to find a DNI), so the Court is where Sheeran Goes
On 6 April 2022, Mr Justice Zacaroli ruled on the highly publicised case involving Ed Sheeran (and others) against Sam Chokri (and others) over Mr Sheeran’s 2017 well-known hit “Shape of You.” The Judge ruled in favour of Mr Sheeran a...