Welcome to our newsletter, bringing you the latest intellectual property, technology and media law news.
‘.CON’ – How to delete domain names used for infringing purposes
Anyone can register a domain name with little more effort than paying an annual registration fee. This allows people to easily register domain names that can be used for the purpose of infringing on a brand owner’s intellectual property rights.
So what can be done about infringing domain names? In this article, we discuss the legal and practical options available to deal with infringing domain names and websites.
Click here to read more.
Is it designer? No, It’s Violation – NFTs back in the spotlight
While popular culture’s fascination with NFTs has arguably waned since its heyday in recent years, the legal issues surrounding NFTs (including those explored in our article here) certainly have not.
One such legal issue, trademark infringement, was recently explored in the high-profile US case of Hermes International vs. Rothschild.
Although this case relates to US trademark registrations (and laws), it still highlights some important concepts that also exist in the Australian trademark system.
Click here to read more.
Important Considerations Before Initiating Legal Proceedings in Intellectual Property Disputes
If an intellectual property owner (owner) believes that his or her rights have been violated by someone else, in addition to considerations about the likelihood of success in court, there are at least four considerations that owners should consider before the owner may institute legal proceedings .
In this article, we examine these four considerations in detail.
Click here to read more.
In case you missed it, the following articles were recently written and published by our team:
Risk management program now mandatory for certain critical infrastructure assets
The next installment of Australia’s new critical infrastructure system is here. As hinted at in our previous article, the highly anticipated Security of Critical Infrastructure (Critical Infrastructure Risk Management Program) Rules (LIN 23/006) 2023 (CIRMP Rules) came into force on February 17, 2023. Entities responsible for certain critical infrastructure assets mandated by the CIRMP rules must adopt a critical infrastructure risk management program by August 17, 2023.
Anyone working in the identified areas should carefully consider whether their assets meet the definitions of criticality as set out in the Critical Infrastructure Securing Act 2018 (Kth).
Click here to read more.
Catching up with international developments in data protection: The Commonwealth’s Privacy Act Review 2022
The Review of data protection law – Report 2022 would raise the bar for the protection of personal data below the Data Protection Act 1988 (Kth). The proposed reforms would bridge the gap roughly halfway between Australia’s data protection laws and the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation, and bring us closer to recent data protection reforms in other key jurisdictions – Japan, Singapore, California.
The proposed reforms would improve the protection of personal data and give individuals more transparency and control over how their personal data is handled.
Click here to read more.
Space law update: One person’s space junk is another’s treasure – who is legally liable for damage caused by space junk?
Debris in low-Earth orbit has increased by 50% in the last five years, and some estimate that there is as much as a 10% chance of a person being hit by space debris in this decade. There are millions of pieces of space debris orbiting the Earth at speeds so fast that even a fingernail-sized smudge of paint can cause significant damage to satellites and other objects in orbit.
In HWL Ebsworth’s first space law article, we discuss who is legally responsible for damage caused by space debris.
Click here to read more.
Pokémon No: Federal court issues injunction against misleading NFT project
Pokémon’s “Got to Catch Them All!” quest seems to tie in well with the promise of NFTs as digital collectibles.
While there are a number of NFT projects that include games with Pokémon-inspired concepts, one group went one step further by promoting their own upcoming NFT game, PokeWorld, which features recognizable Pokémon like Pikachu, Bulbasaur, Charmander, and Eevee contains.
This case is one of the first major examples of an Australian court being asked to consider NFTs.
Click here to read more.
Federal court dismisses lawsuit against Google’s use of consent summaries for “Skippers, Skimmers and Readers”.
Last year, the federal court imposed a $60 million fine on Google LLC (Google) for misleading or deceptive behavior, for statements about the collection of user location data.
In December, the federal court issued its decision on the second such case, finding that unlike the first case, Google had not committed any misleading or deceptive behavior when obtaining consent from account holders to combine their user data and third-party data. Third-party websites and apps to improve targeted advertising.
The two Google decisions highlight that brief summaries presented to individuals can be appropriate vehicles for privacy consent, but also the importance of ensuring those summaries are accurate.
Click here to read more.
