Friday, July 09, 2010

So many developments....

Kids moving out of school, trying to move house, write a working paper, plan teaching for next year and suddenly interesting developments all over the place.

So, briefly:

1. ISPs are challenging to UK Digital Economy Act 2010 - see intial Out-Law commentary. The powerful challenging the powerful? What legal tools will they use to augment their points regarding scrutiny?

2., ECJ decision in Monsanto case regarding patentability of biotech inventions takes a narrow approach to interpretation of the Biotechnology Directive and finds that TRIPS has no impact on the interperation of the Directive . With this and the US Supreme Court decision in Bilksi (see recent tweet), is it becoming harder for patents to be obtained? What impact might this have on control of innovation and knowledge governance?

3. On which note, see (and do respond) to the survey, running until 30 July 2010 of the Oxford Taskforce on Global Knowledge Governance.

4. EU General Court upled the landmark ruling of the European Commission finding that AstraZeneca had abused a dominant position by the manner in which it had pursued patent applications and used the regulatory system - although it did reduce the fine. This decision suggests that what is now article 102 TFEU may indeed have an impact beyond the IMS/Microsoft- esque sagas regarding refusals to licence. How far might it go regarding raising enforcement actions? And standards?

And perhaps my favourite...

5. Thanks to IPWatch for noting that ACTA negotiators said that “ACTA will not interfere with a signatory's ability to respect fundamental rights and liberties”.....