IRISH ®; JAPANESE ©

Irish TM case

The IPKat has learnt from the Irish Sunday Business Post that the housing company Shomera has won a trade mark case in the Irish High Court that will allow it to stop a businessman from using the domain name http://www.seomra.com/. Seomra (meaning ‘room’ in Gaelic) is the name of Shomera’s main product, standalone rooms which it builds on to houses.

The IPKat says that it’s not clear from the article what the precise basis of the decision was, but there are strong hints concerning unfair advantage of Shomera’s reputation.


Japan to up copyright term?

The Daily Yomiuri reports that 14 Japanese arts and cultural organisations are calling for the Japanese copyright term to be increased from 50 years post mortem to 70 years post mortem. In response, the Cultural Affairs Agency will seek opinions from an advisory panel. The copyright term for films, animations and cinematographic works has already been upped to 70 years post mortem to enable Japan to compete internationally more effectively, but the term for other types of works has not.

A spokeswoman for the Japanese animation industry (right) gives her response

The IPKat doubts whether increasing the term from 50 to 70 years will provide a greater incentive to create and he doubts whether, in most cases, it will lead to a significantly greater reward for the author. However, he can see the unfairness of giving the authors of one type of primary copyright work greater protection that those of other types of primary works.