Task 1 – Play well with intellectual property law (LEGO)

Additional reading (if the link does not work, open it in incognito window):
 D. Hunter & J. Thomas, ‘Lego Brick’, in O. Kamp & D. Hunter (eds.), A
History of Intellectual Property in 50 Objects (CUP, 2019) pp. 256-263,
available here (log-in via RuG library required).

Questions:
a. What are the legal options under patent, copyright and trademark law that
the LEGO company has used?
a. Intellectual property rights lega has pursued: patents over
lego brick designs: patent the traditional cubes than other
type sof bricks
a. Problem with patenst was that they expired as patrents
are not a never ending protection
b. Trademarks: to protect the brand name, an didnetity of lego
a. Trademark applied to name, logo, classic 3d mark,
classic brick, nobs on the top
c. Copyright:
d. They used as many things as possible to take care of the
brand
b. Can you manufacture and sell a LEGO brick today?
a. Just don’t make the exact same thing as lego

Copyright protects: original work, any expression of original work

 Art, scientific work: original works
 How to get copyright protecteion: automatic, you are protected by the berlin
convenetio so by international conventiuon: effect is global in states that are
signatories to the berlin convenetion
Patents: protects the expression of an idea: novel, inventive set and gets protection
under patent requirements
- Gets protection under national law if you register it on state level but also possible
on state level
o Patent office of own country
o International patent is more costly and time consuming
Trademarks: sign, that represents tehidentity of a brand, and u can protect it bz getting a
trademark
- To protect your brand from other compnies copying the logo an didea
- How to get a patent?--> register domestically
Task 2 - Mickey Mouse: IPR & Public Domain

Watch (if the links do not work, open them in incognito windows):
 How Mickey Mouse Destroyed the Public Domain – video (3 min)
 User Liberation: Free Software – video (3 min)

Questions:
a. What belongs in the public domain? Is the public domain important and
why?
a. Wher things go when ip rioghts expire, people can go and use it get
inspired create adaptions and difefernt versions,
b. It is important as it gives u access to information
b. What is the relationship between IPRs and the public domain?
a. Incentrive innovation reward cycle: people create things when they
know they will benefit from that invention (aka carrot and stick)

Also possible for ip rights to use the ork of ip holder, people are
allowed to use a copyright protected word
Creative Common license: let people use your work (CC):
protected word is allowed to be use for certain things

Mickey: charcters were tied up and stuff

- After death plus 70 years the work enters the public domain and can be
used by anyone so mickey was supposed to enter the public domain, but
Disney did not like that nor want that
- Used power and position as a company and lobbied at us to change
copyright laws: so mickey did not enter public domain
o It is a concern that large corporations canm put őpressure on the
government and stop things from entering into the public domain

Task 3 – CMB v JMC

CMB Institute developed a set of computer programs used for data analysis (the
‘CMB System’) that allows users to write and run their own Scripts in a CMB- specific
programming language.

JMC developed a competing program called the World Programming System that
sought to emulate the CMB System as close as possible. In the process, it obtained a
license to the “Learning Edition” of the CMB program and manuals, which it studied,
but did not access or copy the CMB source code. The World Programming System is
written in the CMB Language, and is designed to allow the use of Scripts originally
written for the CMB System.

CMB accuses JMC of copyright infringement and wants to bring the case before the
court. CMB argues that JMC copied its manuals and thereby indirectly copied its
programs; breached the license of the “Learning Edition” of the CMB System; and
created its own manual that was based on the CMB System’s, thereby in- fringing its
copyrights. Do you have any legal advice for CMB?

Case law: SAS institute (literal copy, para 39, wht are the sources they looked
at? If not looked at obvj code or s c than not protected by copyright)

- 2 competeing programs
- 2nd program did not see source nbor object code so did not copy
o Literal vs non literal copying
o Non li: access to the idea, inside different but outside is very
similar for user
o Literal: has source and object code so literally copy the work
o 39 On the basis of those considerations, it must be stated that, with regard to the
elements of a computer program which are the subject of Questions 1 to 5, neither
the functionality of a computer program nor the programming language and the
format of data files used in a computer program in order to exploit certain of its
functions constitute a form of expression of that program for the purposes of
Article 1(2) of Directive 91/250
 Source or object code constitutes copyright infringement but otrher
structuring u are faced witrh are non literal elemnts therefore not
protected by copyright infringement as they are 2 different programs
Software directive 1(2)
- Ideas and pricniples are not entitled to protection

Based on sas case: no infringement as source code and object code has nopt
been copied

Task 4 – Saide’s tweet

Saide is a Turkish international studying in the Netherlands. She has been very
active on social media for many years. Her pride and joy has always been her Twitter
account, where she regularly posts witty observations about life, the universe, and
everything. Before she moved to the Netherlands last year, she always posted these
tweets in Turkish to her humble audience of approximately 100 followers.

Saide’s major claim to fame came three years ago, when a particularly funny
comment about penguins went viral in Turkey. People were sharing it online all
throughout the country and even some Turkish news sites picked up on it. As is the
way of the Internet, after a few days people had forgotten about Saide’s tweet, and
life went back to normal.

That is, until Saide came to the Netherlands. One day when she was browsing for a
new T-shirt, Saide stumbled upon a shirt with a Dutch translation of her penguin
comment on it! The shirt was offered by the company YouLaugh. YouLaugh is well-
known in the Netherlands for posting clever one-liners in a very distinctive and
recognizable format. This has earned them over a million followers, as well as sizable
profits from the sale of T-shirts.

Saide is certain this T-shirt was based on her tweet. It is a literal translation of her
comment, which she had come up with all on her own. A thorough internet search
with the help of her multilingual classmates also does not produce any results other
than Saide’s tweet in Turkish. Saide certainly doesn’t mind having her tweets shared
by individual people just for a laugh, but she is not at all happy with a company
selling it for profit. She emails YouLaugh telling them to stop selling their T-shirt
without her permission.

She receives a response signed by YouLaugh’s legal team. Although they do ad- mit
that their T-shirt was based on Saide’s Turkish tweet, they nonetheless re- fuse to
take their shirts off the shelves.

They claim, first of all, that there is no copyright on Twitter posts at all. They are
simply too short and generic to receive any protection. Secondly, even if there was a
copyright on her tweet, she already lost her rights by allowing peo-ple and news sites
in Turkey to share it when it went viral three years ago. If shewants to invoke
authorship rights, she already should’ve done it then. And finally, by translating her
tweet and putting it into their distinctive YouLaugh format, YouLaugh has sufficiently
adapted Saide’s tweet to make it into a new original work.

Saide comes to you for help. She wonders whether she can claim IP rights on her
penguin tweet, and if can she stop YouLaugh from selling the T-shirts with-out her
permission. Advise Saide on what to do, and in doing so address YouLaugh’s
arguments.

As a general reflection:

 Is there copyright protection on (your) social media posts? All of them? None?
Some only?
  Has the Internet with its culture of unrestricted free sharing (pictures, videos,
tweets, retweets, memes, etc) made IPR outdated or even obsolete?

Are your written answers to the above questions protected by IPR?

1. No copyright for tweets

a. Twitter posts to short to receive ip protection:
i. Law: berlin convention: establish how long a piece of work needs to
be? No length is required, what is req is an original work and
original artziocstic etc (art 2(1))
ii. Should be observed the words: sas (page 223) In the present case, the
keywords, syntax, commands and combinations of commands, options, defaults
and iterations consist of words, figures or mathematical concepts which,
considered in isolation, are not, as such, an intellectual creation of the author of
the computer program. 67 It is only through the choice, sequence and
combination of those words, figures or mathematical concepts that the author
may express his creativity in an original manner and achieve a result, namely the
user manual for the computer program, which is an intellectual creation (see, to
that effect, Infopaq International, paragraph 45).
2. Lost rights
a. Saidi failed to invoke ip rights so now she cannot do that retroactively, is
that right, does she loose copyright protecxtion?
i. No, article 9(1) berne convention: can stop the production
ii. Artiucle 10 lets u do quotations
3. Adapted work to new original work
a. Artzicle 2(3) Translations, adaptations, arrangements of music and other alterations of
a literary or artistic work shall be protected as original works without prejudice to the
copyright in the original work.
b. Article 8: author has exclusive right to translate work
c. Article 12: autho rhss right ztto authorize adaption of work

What should saidi do?

- Get injuction: go to court, art 5 berne

- Country of origin is turkey as it was publiushe dtehre
o Saide is abkle to use berne convention if both cpountries are parties to the
berne convention that way she could enforce her rights ion front of the
dutch courts