SOMETHING FOR THE WEEKEND ...
Latest ECCPart 3 of the bimonthly European Commercial Cases, published by Sweet & Maxwell, has now been issued. This series is not a mainline intellectual property law report, but frequently carries cases of great interest and relevance to the IP community (or at least to the IPKat, who regularly checks it out).
One such case is reported in this issue: Société Belge des Auteurs Compositeurs et Editeurs v SA Productions & Marketing, a ruling of the Cour d'appel of Brussels from November 2005 that the company managing Belgian copyright in musical works was abusing its dominant position by offering royalty terms that discriminated against smaller users.
Can't get no satisfaction?
Then try OHIM, the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market - the office that grants Community trade marks and registered designs. You can read OHIM's response to the results of its user satisfaction survey here. The result of the survey, the IPKat notes, is that OHIM is indeed satisfied with the level of service it provides ... Come now, chides Merpel: that's not fair! Considering how many difficult people the Office has to deal with, and how vulnerable it is to criticism, it does pretty well. But it takes a brave applicant to say he's satisfied if he's paid his filing fee (and his professional representative's bill) but still can't get Community-wide protection of CHEESY BURGERS for cheeseburgers.
How to win friends and influence people here
For lasting pleasure ...
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Have a nice weekend.