The US Patent and Trademark Office reversed a refusal to register 'Country Music Association' as a mark. It judged that although the original judgment had correctly found the mark to be too generic, the mark had acquired 'distinctiveness'. / read more

A number of questions concerning the interpretation of the European Software Directive addressed the scope of legal protection that should be afforded to computer software in Europe. The Advocate-General has set out how those issues should be determined. / read more

The UK High Court has handed down the first order made pursuant to section 97A of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, placing the burden of complying with injunctions under section 97A on internet service providers. / read more

The CRTC addressed usage based billing practices for the wholesale residential highspeed internet access services, reviewing a decision from January 2011. / read more

In a federal suit under the US Copyright Act, a US District Court recently granted LV Gaming Ventures LLC a preliminary injunction in a case over the domain name . / read more

The lines between personal and professional use of social media are becoming increasingly blurred. The common theme running throughout the current case law is that there are no specific contractual terms governing the ownership of contacts made in the course of the employment relationship. / read more

The Court of Justice of the European Union found that a ban on online sales in a selective distribution contract can only be compatible with EU law if it can be objectively justified. It did not accept the argument that physical sales were necessary to provide individual advice on cosmetics products. / read more

A Belgian Court ordered that imposing costly and onerous obligations on ISPs to monitor widely for copyright infringements is not compatible with EU legislation. / read more

Liability for Defamatory Third-Party Content with regard to the as-yet unpublished verdict from the German Federal Court of Justice. / read more

The government's warrantless use of a global positioning system (GPS) devices to track the public movements of an individual's vehicle for approximately four weeks was an unreasonable 'search' in violation of the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution. / read more

Villalón said that licensing systems and procedures need to respect the requirements of the EU Treaty and legislation must be non-discriminatory, proportional and suitable. / read more

Recent case law in the US has made it very difficult for individuals to claim Fourth Amendment protection in the types of records and 'behind the scenes' usage data regularly provided to and retained by social network services - or potentially by any website. / read more