Patently Wrong – The jury’s verdict in Apple v Samsung
All is fair in love and (patent) war, but apparently not when it comes to awarding damages in patent litigation. After nearly 18 months of protracted trench-warfare between Apple and Samsung’s formidable IP legal teams in the Northern District Court of California, Judge Lucy Koh surrendered the matter to a panel of 9 laymen (and women). A mere 22 hours later the (well rested and fed) jury had finished studying Judge Koh’s 109 page instructions and 26 pages of the parties’ juror forms, answered all 56 factual and legal questions and ticked all of the 250+ boxes of the baffling verdict...
Read MoreForm Over Function – ECJ Rules On Software Copyright
Seldom does a fact bear repeating as frequently as the maxim, “There is no copyright in ideas”. And despite the regularity with which this fundamental principle of copyright law is cited, its application remains a bone of contention. Since the Statute of Anne (1710), the common antecedent of modern copyright law, this creature of statute exists exclusively for the protection of the material expression of ideas, and not the underlying ideas, facts or discoveries contained in the work. For this reason, copyright protection vests at the moment a work is recorded in physical form, and only to...
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