Our public lectures series on topical issues of intellectual property law and policy is open to anyone to attend, but space is limited. Please email Terry Mitchell to reserve a place on one or all of the lectures. The events will take place at the Executive Business Centre, close to Bournemouth train station.
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Eleonora Rosati (University of Southampton): “Enforcement of IP rights over the internet: where are we now?”
Thursday 7 February 2019, 18.00, Room EB 306
EU law provides that, in principle and insofar as certain conditions are satisfied, information society service providers are not liable for infringements committed by users of their services (safe harbours). While being without prejudice to the safe harbour regime, EU law also sets an obligation for EU Member States to ensure that rightholders are in a position to apply for an injunction against intermediaries whose services are used by a third party to infringe an IP right. Yet, the conditions and modalities for such injunctions are left to the laws of individual Member States, the result being a fragmentation of approaches across the EU. In all this, recent case law and policy initiatives have also put forward the idea that information society service providers might be considered as directly responsible (and liable) for the making available of user-uploaded content. This talk will explore recent developments in the area of enforcement, by discussing safe harbours, injunctions against intermediaries (including responsibility for the costs), and the direct liability of information society service providers.
Eleonora Rosati is Associate Professor in Intellectual Property Law at the University of Southampton.
Siva Thambisetty (LSE): “Improving Access to Patented Medicines: A Wicked Problem”
Thursday 7 March 2019, 18:00, Room EB 206
In its resistance to change access to patented medicines is the classic wicked problem, requiring contradictory and changing requirements with inter-connected elements and an associated economic burden that is difficult to grasp let alone address. The access gap now preoccupies the UN, as well as US and European authorities and has ceased to be a mere problem of poverty. In this lecture, I will discuss how the access to medicines issue is a manifestation of the dysfunction that is at the heart of how we treat innovation through patent systems.
Siva Thambisetty is Associate Professor of Law at the Department of Law of the London School of Economics and Social Sciences.
Jose Bellido (University of Kent): “Merchandising Revisited”
Thursday 4 April 2019, 18:00, Room EB 206
This lecture traces the rise of merchandising as a distinct and independent commercial and legal practice in the United Kingdom. While intellectual property textbooks often discuss merchandising activities, their focus is primarily on specific cases and legislative developments in the distinct branches of intellectual property, mainly copyright, passing off and trade mark law. What is less often stressed there is the historicity of the practice as such and the changing conditions for its emergence. The lecture discusses the specific relation between law and marketing that arose with the earliest days of television. The arrival of commercial television facilitated and stabilised some contractual practices between commercial agencies and sectors such as the toy, publishing and food industries, eager to capitalise on the new medium. In conclusion, the lecture reflects on what this trade shared (or not) with character merchandising of the early days of the film industry, to provide a deeper historical understanding of a twentieth century intellectual property phenomenon.
Jose Bellido is Senior Lecturer at the University of Kent Law School.
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