Former Allen & Overy colleagues Thierry van Innis en Dieter Delarue launch new Belgian IP boutique law firm, with offices in Antwerp and Brussels: Van Innis & Delarue

Thierry van Innis and Dieter Delarue announce the formation of VAN INNIS & DELARUE, a boutique law firm for creative and innovative clients, focusing on intellectual property law and related subject matters. Many existing clients are trend setting in media & entertainment, designer goods, life sciences and e-commerce & technology.

VAN INNIS & DELARUE brings together more than forty years of experience at leading international law firms. The work of the firm’s lawyers in intellectual property matters before the national courts, the Benelux Court of Justice and the Court of Justice of the European Union has led to dozens of precedents and landmark decisions. Thierry van Innis, referred to by Chambers and Partners as “the pope of trade mark law in Belgium” and qualified as a “Senior Statesman” for IP law in Belgium, has litigated more high profile trade mark cases before the Court of Justice of the European Union and the Benelux Court of Justice than any other IP lawyer. He is also still the only Belgian ever who has won a Lifetime Achievement Award at the World Leaders European IP Awards.Referring to the rationale behind the plans, Thierry van Innis commented:

“Many of our creative and innovative clients have worked with IP boutique law firms abroad, and praise the specialized IP boutique as a law firm model where lawyers can be as passionate and innovative as they are about their brands, creations and inventions. Also, they deliver the right mix of experience and specialization on one hand, and availability and a personal touch on the other hand”.

“While the specialized boutique is a law firm model which is commonly used in Belgium for other specialist areas such as tax and employment law, it is relatively new for IP matters”, Dieter Delarue added. “We are committed to position our boutique law firm among the handful of ‘go-to’ IP litigation firms in the Belgian market. Our mission is to provide clients with the highest possible quality of service. In this respect, we are pleased to begin working with a small group of people who know each other, who have worked together before, and who are all dedicated to excellence in advocacy”.

Thierry van Innis and Dieter Delarue re-unite in this new boutique, having previously worked together at Allen & Overy, until Thierry’s move to Field Fisher Waterhouse in 2009. The team will be strengthened by the arrival of Heidi Waem, an associate who also joins from Allen & Overy. The firm’s plan calls for measured growth over the next two to three years, with the objective to build a focused and specialized team of four to eight attorneys.

For more information and extensive CVs of the founders, please visit www.vaninnis-delarue.be.

Poort. J., Quintais, J.P. (2013). The Levy Runs Dry: a legal and economic analysis of EU private copying levies. jipitec (forthcoming) Vol. 4 (3).
Private copying, exception or limitation, levies, fair compensation, harm, technological protection measures, DRM. This article provides a legal and economic analysis of private copying levies in the EU, against the background of the Copyright Directive (2001/29), a number of recent rulings by the European Court of Justice and the recommendations presented by mediator Vitorino earlier this year. It concludes that notwithstanding these rulings and recommendations, there remains a lack of concordance on the relevance of contractual stipulations and digital rights management technologies (DRM) for setting levies, and the concept of harm. While Mr. Vitorino and AG Sharpston (in the Opinion preceding VG Wort v Kyocera) use different lines of reasoning to argue that levies raised on authorized copies would lead to double payment, the Court of Justice’s decision in VG Wort v Kyocera seems to conclude that such copies should nonetheless be levied. If levies are to provide fair compensation for harm resulting from acts of private copying, economic analysis suggests one should distinguish between various kinds of private copies and take account of the extent to which the value said copies have for consumers can be priced into the purchase.

Given the availability of DRM (including technical protection measures), the possibility of such indirect appropriation leads to the conclusion that the harm from most kinds of private copies is de minimis and gives no cause for levies. The user value of copies from unauthorised sources (e.g. from torrent networks or cyber lockers), on the other hand, cannot be appropriated indirectly by rightholders. It is however an open question in references for preliminary rulings pending at the Court of Justice whether these copies are included in the scope of the private copying exception or limitation and can thus be be levied for. If they are not, as currently happens in several EU Member States, legal and economic analysis leads to the conclusion that the scope of private copying acts giving rise to harm susceptible of justifying levies is gradually diminishing.

Lees het gehele artikel; IViR.nl

OHIM-EPO Report "Intellectual Property Rights intensive industries: contribution to economic performance and employment in Europe", Industry-Level Analysis Report, September 2013.
Uit het persbericht: De Europese Commissie heeft vandaag met genoegen kennis genomen van een nieuwe studie over het belang van intellectuele-eigendomsrechten voor de economie van de Unie. Deze studie (“Intellectual Property Rights intensive industries: contribution to economic performance and employment in Europe”) is uitgevoerd door het Europees Octrooibureau en het Bureau voor harmonisatie binnen de interne markt. De belangrijkste conclusies van de studie zijn dat 39% van de totale economische activiteit in de EU (goed voor ca. 4,7 biljoen EUR) voortvloeit uit bedrijfssectoren waarin intensief gebruik wordt gemaakt van intellectuele eigendomsrechten. Maar liefst 26% van alle werkgelegenheid in de EU (56 miljoen banen) is direct afhankelijk van deze sectoren, terwijl nog eens 9% van alle banen daarvan indirect afhankelijk is.

Meer lezen: IP Contribution Rapport (link); Full Report (pdf); Study in Figures (pdf) en de Executive Summary NL (pdf):

Belangrijkste uitkomsten
De bijdrage van IPR-intensieve bedrijfstakken aan de werkgelegenheid in de EU bedraagt 26%, die aan het BBP van de EU 39%.

IPR-intensieve bedrijfstakken worden gedefinieerd als bedrijfstakken met een meer dan gemiddeld gebruik van IPR’s per werknemer. Uit deze studie blijkt dat ongeveer de helft van de Europese bedrijfstakken als IPRintensief kan worden beschouwd. Het is echter belangrijk erop te wijzen dat alle bedrijfstakken tot op zekere hoogte gebruikmaken van IPR’s. Het feit dat alleen wordt gekeken naar de IPR-intensieve bedrijfstakken, betekent dus dat de werkelijke bijdrage van IPR’s aan de Europese economie hoger zal zijn dan uit deze studie naar voren komt.

Het blijkt dat in de periode 2008-2010 bijna 26% van alle banen is gegenereerd in IPR-intensieve bedrijfstakken. Voor de merkintensieve bedrijfstakken bedraagt dit percentage bijna 21%, voor modelintensieve bedrijfstakken 12%, voor octrooi-intensieve bedrijfstakken 10%, terwijl auteursrechtintensieve en GA-intensieve bedrijfstakken kleinere percentages laten zien. Gemiddeld waren in deze periode 56,5 miljoen Europeanen werkzaam in IPR-intensieve bedrijfstakken, op een totale beroepsbevolking van ongeveer 218 miljoen mensen. Daarnaast werden nog eens 20 miljoen banen gegenereerd in bedrijfstakken die goederen en diensten leveren aan de IPR-intensieve bedrijfstakken. Indirecte banen meegerekend bedraagt het totale aantal banen dat afhankelijk is van IPR’s bijna 77 miljoen (35,1%).

In dezelfde periode werd bijna 39% van de totale economische bedrijvigheid (BBP) gegenereerd in IPR-intensieve bedrijfstakken; dit komt overeen met een bedrag van 4,7 biljoen EUR. Ook waren deze bedrijfstakken verantwoordelijk voor het grootste deel van de handel van de EU met de rest van de wereld. De modelintensieve, auteursrechtintensieve en GA-intensieve bedrijfstakken genereerden een handelsoverschot IPR-intensieve bedrijfstakken betalen ook significant hogere salarissen dan andere bedrijfstakken. Het verschil bedraagt meer dan 40%. Dit is in overeenstemming met het feit dat de toegevoegde waarde per werknemer in IPR-intensieve bedrijfstakken hoger is dan in andere sectoren van de economie.

De bijdrage van IPR-intensieve bedrijfstakken aan de twee belangrijkste economische indicatoren – werkgelegenheid en productie – wordt in (de onderstaande) drie tabellen samengevat.

CMS Response to Consultation on the UPC Rules of Procedure (the "Rules"), CMS September 2013.
Ingezonden door Willem Hoorneman en Rogier de Vrey, CMS Derks Star Busmann gericht aan het Prepatory Committee van het Unified Patent Court.

CMS is an international law firm with an extensive presence in Europe. With 2,800 legal and tax advisers in 54 offices, we are the largest provider of legal services in Europe. Our international Intellectual Property team consists of approximately 150 lawyers located across Western, Central and Eastern Europe and beyond. We have been following the proposals relating to the Unified Patents Court and Unitary Patent and the drafting of the Rules with interest, and have spoken to clients to gather their views. These comments reflect our internal and external discussions in general, and do not represent the views of any particular client of CMS.

Lees de gehele bijdrage hier.

W. Pors, B. Vandermeulen, Bird & Bird submission on the Rules of Procedure for the Unified Patent Court, brief 30 september 2013.
Ingezonden door Wouter Pors, Bird & Bird gericht aan het Prepatory Committee van het Unified Patent Court: On behalf of Bird & Bird LLP we hereby submit our comments on the Draft Rules of Procedure for the Unified Patent Court as published on the website on 31 May 2013. This submission was prepared by the International UPC Steering Group of Bird & Bird, which comprises patent litigators and patent attorneysin the various countries in which we practise. We have also been involved in the preparation of the submissions of AIPPI and EPLAW and have taken these submissions into account. We have further also taken the epi submission into account. This submission represents our independent professional view of the Rules of Procedure and is made to support the further improvement of the envisaged system.

We have taken the UPC Agreement as a given starting point that currently cannot be changed any more, which does not mean that we support all choices made in that Agreement. However, in some instances we cannot avoid suggesting some small amendments to the Agreement, but only where we think such amendments do not touch on political issues.

Lees de gehele bijdrage hier.

Technical Board of Appeal of the European Patent Office, 11 July 2013, ECLI:EP:BA:2013:T167007.20130711 (Nokia Siemens Networks - Method for planning a shopping trip using a mobile device)
Met samenvatting van John Allen, NautaDutilh.
In the continuing search for clarification of the patentability and inventive step criteria for computer implemented inventions, a Technical Board of Appeal of the EPO has used surprisingly clear wording to stop computer implemented inventions from expanding into the realm of functional, business method type claims. It has become more or less standard for applicants to argue that because of an "interaction" between basic technical features (such as processors, memories and displays) with "non-technical" features (e.g. certain specific data), the claim as a whole could constitute a patentable invention. It is exactly the nature of this "interaction" that is discussed in the recent decision T-1670/07. The EPO now warns that a lot of these arguments are considered "fallacies".

Shopping, anyone?
The case concerned the refusal of the grant of European Patent Application EP 1 216 450 ("EP 450") as applied for by Nokia. Nokia's application relates to a method and system of shopping with a mobile device to purchase goods and/or services. In short, the users would enter some of the items he (or she) would be looking for on his shopping spree, and a server in connection with the mobile device would identify the best shops to go or plan the shortest possible round trip. A great idea for those who regard shopping as a necessary evil, but a patentable invention?On appeal from a refusal by the Examining Division, the discussion before the Board centred around the question of whether identifying goods, identifying vendors and planning a shopping trip with the aid of a mobile device in contact with a server resulted in a patentable invention?

On appeal from a refusal by the Examining Division, the discussion before the Board centred around the question of whether identifying goods, identifying vendors and planning a shopping trip with the aid of a mobile device in contact with a server resulted in a patentable invention.

Technical effects: sold out?
In the earlier stage of the prosecution the examining division had described the object of the "invention" as "providing a technical means to optimise an itinerary" (shopping trip). It was deemed to lack an inventive step.

On appeal the Technical Board went some steps further and held that providing the user with a choice of an order of visiting shops and (thus) making the itinerary a function of the user profile, did not involve any technical effect at all. The Board rejected Nokia's argument that non-technical features "interacted" with technical features such as to provide an overall technical effect.

Citing older case law, the Board considered that what was required as the result of such an interaction, would be a "real" technical effect. For example, where software interacted with an X-ray apparatus and the result was a longer lifespan of an X-ray tube, there is a clear technical effect. If on the other hand the interaction results only in the display of different information on a screen, there is no technical effect.

The Board's view on "software patenting fallacies"
Discussing the "interaction" arguments raised by Nokia, the Board described these as different typical "fallacy" arguments. Relying on the interaction between the technical features (e.g. the server) and the non-technical features was described as the "technical leakage fallacy", i.e. the intrinsic technical nature of the implementation "leaks back into the intrinsically non-technical nature of the problem". Secondly, the fact that a user of the alleged invention was presented with a "possible choice" as to his shopping trip was described as the "broken technical chain fallacy": a technical effect might result from a user's reaction to information, but this also shows that a technical process is "broken by the intervention of the user" and any technical effect becomes dependant on the "mental activities of the user".

More generally the Board held that where the provision or generation of data is a key feature of the invention, a technical effect may arise from "either the provision of data about a technical process" (such as status information on the operation of a machine or device) or from "the provision of data that is applied directly in a technical process". Neither applied in this case.

So what's the problem?
Turning back to the technical problem, the Board held that describing the problem underlying the alleged invention as " providing a technique which has greater flexibility and can provide results tailored to the user's preferences is not a technical problem and is too general. The Board added that even where the claimed subject matter was different from the prior art and no clear reason could be found for modifying the prior art, this does not mean that there is an inventive step. This reasoning - according to the Board a "non-technical prejudice fallacy" - disregards that it is not so much why, but rather how the prior art was modified. If conventional technical features are used and these perform their tasks in an obvious way, there is no technical reason why the skilled person would refrain from making changes to the prior art. To summarize, the skilled person is basically, in a technical sense doing the same thing: in this case he is planning a shopping trip where two or more items could be bought from multiple vendors, as opposed to the solution in the prior art: identifying just one vendor who has all the items available. The Board held that there was no technical reason why a skilled person would not make this particular modification.

Analysis
The Board did not depart from its "technical contribution" doctrine where even trivial technical claim features would be sufficient to escape the patentable subject matter exclusions ("software as such" and "presentation of information as such".

However, the Board appears to be raising the bar in certain respects, particularly by specifying the nature of the "interaction" that is required between technical and non-technical claim features. Applicants and litigants should take notice of the "red flags" that the Board raises for computer implemented inventions. Particularly, certain types claims may particularly be regarded as "suspect":

• claims that essentially deal with standard human behavioural concepts such as going to the bank or going shopping;
• claims that provide for a technical effect or outcome, depending on the reaction of the user;
• claims said to provide for abstract solutions such as "greater flexibility", "customization"," individualization" etc.; and
• claims using functional langue in combination with trivial/well known technical features (such as standard hardware), especially where the patent does not specify how (i.e. in which technical way) the conventional hardware is to be modified.

D.F. de Lange, Noot onder HvJ EU zaak C‑133/11 (Folien Fischer/Ritrama), JBPr.
Een bijdrage van Daan de Lange, Brinkhof.
Arrest onder IEF 11924. IPR. Verordening (EG) nr. 44/2001 (EEX-Verordening); internationale rechtsmacht; grensoverschrijdende onrechtmatige daad; negatieve declaratoire vordering.

Een negatieve declaratoire vordering tot bepaling dat niet onrechtmatig werd gehandeld, valt onder de werkingssfeer van artikel 5(3) EEX-Verordening. Als de omstandigheden die in de negatieve declaratoire vordering aan de orde zijn, aanknoping kunnen rechtvaardigen met de staat van de schade veroorzakende gebeurtenis of waar de schade zich heeft voorgedaan of kan voordoen, kan de rechter van een van deze twee plaatsen zich op grond van art. 5(3) EEX-Verordening rechtsgeldig bevoegd verklaren om kennis te nemen van die vordering, ongeacht de vraag of deze is ingesteld door de vermeende benadeelde van een onrechtmatige daad of door de potentiële schuldenaar van een daarop gebaseerde vordering.

Uit deze rechtspraak zou men kunnen afleiden dat ook bij andere ‘Streudelikten’ de omvang van de rechtsmacht van de rechter van het Erfolgsort beperkt moet blijven tot het territoir van het desbetreffende land. Zo heeft ook de Nederlandse rechter het Shevill-arrest in de (intellectuele eigendoms)praktijk toegepast (zie bijvoorbeeld Th.C.J.A. van Engelen, Intellectuele eigendom en internationaal privaatrecht, Den Haag: BJu 2007, nr. 458.). Een en ander zou betekenen dat in de onderhavige casus de uitspraak van de Duitse rechter alleen betrekking zal hebben op de situatie in Duitsland. Of Folien Fischer en Fofitec in andere landen onrechtmatig jegens Ritrama hebben gehandeld, wordt daarmee dus nog niet beslist.

D.F. de Lange
Amsterdam, 12 september 2013

B.Kist, 'Geen kunst op Amerikaanse postzegel', NRC 26 september 2013.
Een bijdrage van Bas Kist, Chiever BV.
Het Amerikaanse US Postal Service is afgelopen vrijdag veroordeeld tot betaling van een schadevergoeding van 685.000 dollar aan de kunstenaar Frank Gaylord. Het postbedrijf had een postzegel uitgegeven met een foto van het Korean War Veterans Memorial, een kunstwerk van Gaylord dat te zien is in Washington.

De zegel werd in 2003 verspreid ter gelegenheid van de 50ste verjaardag van het einde van de Koreaanse oorlog. Na verschillende juridische procedures stelde de Amerikaanse rechter Gaylord na 10 jaar in het gelijk. Volgens de rechter heeft het postbedrijf, door zonder toestemming van Gaylord het kunstwerk af te beelden, inbreuk gemaakt op de auteursrechten van de kunstenaar. US Postal Service overweegt in beroep te gaan.

Zou dit conflict in Nederland hebben gespeeld, dan was het waarschijnlijk anders gelopen. De Nederlandse Auteurswet bepaalt sinds 2004 dat foto’s van kunstwerken die aan de openbare weg zijn geplaatst zonder toestemming gepubliceerd mogen worden. Het idee hierachter is dat dat soort werken enigszins tot het ‘publieke domein’ behoren.

Bas Kist
[de redactie is op zoek naar de 2013 beslissing in deze zaak, zie uitspraak US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit 25 februari 2010, nr. 2009-5044.]

Uit het persbericht: Afgelopen juni heeft het Prepatory Committee voor het Unified Patent Court (UPC) organisatorische regels en een gedetailleerd stappenplan aangenomen. Eén van de prioriteiten van het stappenplan is om kandidaat-rechters te werven, selecteren en trainen als toekomstige rechters van het UPC. Het UPC heeft hiervoor de zogeheten Call for expression of interest gepubliceerd en de regels van de voorselectie.

Reacties kunnen uiterlijk 15 november 2013 worden ingezonden naar secretariat@unified-patent-court.org.

HvJ EU 26 september 2013, zaak C-610/11P (Centrotherm Systemtechnik tegen BHIM en centrotherm Clean Solutions) - dossier
Zie eerder: IEF 12658. Gemeenschapswoordmerk, normaal gebruik van het merk, bewijs. Hogere voorziening tegen het arrest van het Gerecht (Zesde kamer) van 15 september 2011, Centrotherm Clean Solutions/BHIM (T-434/09), waarbij is verworpen het beroep tegen de beslissing van de vierde kamer van beroep van het BHIM van 25 augustus 2009 (zaak R 6/20084) voor zover daarbij de vordering tot vervallenverklaring van het merk CENTROTHERM is toegewezen.

Volgens Centrotherm heeft het Gerecht ten onrechte gesteld dat het verklaring op erewoord geen bewijskracht heeft. Ook had het BHIM in een procedure tot vervallenverklaring de in verordening (EG) nr. 207/2009 vastgestelde regels ambtshalve had moeten onderzoeken. Verder stelt Centrotherm had het BHIM de niet tijdig overlegde bewijsstukken in aanmerking kunnen nemen. Tenslotte had het Gerecht regel 40, lid 5, van verordening (EG) nr. 2868/95 buiten toepassing moeten verklaren.

Het Hof (Vierde kamer) verklaart:
1)      Het arrest van het Gerecht van de Europese Unie van 15 september 2011, Centrotherm Systemtechnik/BHIM – centrotherm Clean Solutions (CENTROTHERM) (T‑434/09), wordt vernietigd.
2)      Punt 2 van het dictum van de beslissing van de vierde kamer van beroep van het Bureau voor harmonisatie binnen de interne markt (merken, tekeningen en modellen) (BHIM) van 25 augustus 2009 (zaak R 6/2008‑4) wordt vernietigd.
3)      Centrotherm Systemtechnik GmbH, het Bureau voor harmonisatie binnen de interne markt (merken, tekeningen en modellen) (BHIM) en centrotherm Clean Solutions GmbH & Co. KG, dragen hun eigen kosten betreffende zowel de procedure in eerste aanleg als de procedure in hogere voorziening.