Posts under ‘European Union’

When a site stores personal details for subscriptions, memberships or the like, there are certain legal regulations it has to take into consideration to stay on the right side of the law. The Data Protection Act sets out eight principles for the lawful processing of data.

The EU Regulation on nutrition and health claims made on foods were passed in 2006 to ensure consumers were not mislead by unsubstantiated health claims on food packaging.

At the beginning of last week alleged Russian spies were charged in a US court. Are we going to see James Bond back with the femme fatales and the echoes of the cold war? [...] This week the Economist launched a double article on ‘Cyberwar The Threat From The Internet’

Globalisation has given the possibility to think further afield. Not only in terms of selling products abroad and market expansion but also in terms of outsourcing work abroad to cut costs, (offshoring). But the export of your services would also entail the export of your client details, which would be subject to the Data Protection Act 1998.

Can an Online Service Provider be held liable for illegal activities that occur by users on their service? In the US, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act provides an exemption for ISPs who inadvertently provide the facilities which are used by others for infringement purposes. In Europe Directive 2000/31/EC (‘Directive on electronic commerce’) has a similar exemption for online service providers. Essentially, the resounding principle in both laws is that a service provider should not be in any way responsible when they were not aware of the fact of the infringement and when made aware they took steps to remove the content.

So you may have made an online application to OHIM and you may be wondering why, after being informed by the EU registry (OHIM) that you’re trade mark has been published, you are still waiting for the certificate in the post. Don’t worry it’s not a postal strike, this time, that has delayed its arrival, [...]

In building an internal market where goods are able to freely move across borders, food became the subject of a number of European regulations. The bendy cucumber is back – see the scope of EU regulations over the composition of foods and marketing.

On the 22 September 2009 the Advocate General Poiares Maduro delivered his opinion on the question of the legality of Google Adwords in relation to EU trade mark law.  He found that Google is not infringing trade mark laws by allowing people to bid on keywords corresponding to trade marks in their Adwords service. This [...]

Some people are confusing the recent press reports concerning the case of  Louis Vuitton vs. Google Inc. with an actual ruling.  In fact the ECJ has not delivered its ruling as yet. The recent release from the ECJ was the opinion of the Advocate General who offers a persuasive but non-binding solution for the Court [...]

Would it not be an amazing day when you could download every book under the sun from one source. From visiting your library, to your local book shop, to online bookshops, to digital libraries – the digital revolution or should we say ‘evolution’ is shaping our ‘access’ to culture again. Project Gutenberg was the first [...]