In other news: Denic softens its rules, Pirate Bay and a handbag war

Some IP news that caught this kat's eye this week include....

We learned from the BBC that The Pirate Bay, now officially owned by a Seychelles-based company called Riversella Ltd, was yet again involved in court proceedings. This time a Dutch court ordered The Pirate Bay's founders to remove all links to the material of a group of Dutch music and film makers. The case was brought by Stichting Brein against The Pirate Bay's former spokesperson Peter Sunde and its other founders Frederik Neij and Gottfrid Svartholmmen.

According to the BBC's report Strichting Brein had submitted a report at court claiming that Frederik Neij was the Chief Executive of Riversella Ltd. The Pirate Bay's founders deny this allegation and in turn state that given this latest judgment was is not against The Pirate Bay but "against the former owners of TPB" it put them "in a weird position, since none of us have the control they tell us to get. Does the court require us to hack someone else's system?"

Is it just me or is The Pirate Bay saga getting slightly absurd?

Handbag wars? The website Financial Express this week reported that actress Mischa Barton and Australian accessories maker Mischa Accessories are engaged in a trade mark dispute. Mischa Barton, of television fame, is trying to register her name as a trade mark in Australia for goods such as handbags. Mischa Accessories active in the same obviously was not too keen and opposed. For a slightly different spin of this story, please click here.

Denic softens its registration rules: last year the Higher Regional Court of Frankfurt decided that Denic, the German central registry operator of the .de top level domain, had to register the domain http://www.vw.de/ as requested by Volkswagen AG. The court, inter alia, decided that Denic's refusal to register the domain was against competition laws due to Denic's dominant position (case ref. 11 U 32/04) on the market.

The Frankfurt court had ruled that Denic's argument that single and two digit domains could cause technical problems (and that it system could not process short second-level domains that are similar to top level domains) were not "proportional". In the light of this decision Denic has now amended its domain guidelines with effect from 23 October 2009. Denic abolished most "of the restrictions currently applicable with regard to the registration of second level domains under the TLD .de." The new rules are set out below:

* One- and two-digit domains as well as domain names composed exclusively of numerals can now be registered.

* Domains identical with combinations of letters that are used for motor-vehicle number plates or for TLDs are released for registration.

* A domain may be comprised of the digits 0-9, hyphens, the letters a-z of the Latin alphabet and the other letters listed in the currently valid annex to the Domain Guidelines.

* A domain must neither begin nor end with a hyphen. Neither must it have hyphens as both its third and fourth characters.

* The minimum length of a domain is one character.

* The maximum length of a domain is 63 characters (referred to the ACE-encoded form of the domain) - without .de respectively."

Denic's press release can be found here (in English).