related
Guide:

Intellectual
Property

related
Profiles:

     Cases 2006-

This page supplements the Intellectual Property Guide elsewhere on this site.

It identifies major copyright and competition law rulings by courts and tribunals since 2000, along with pointers to selected academic studies -

• Retransmission
• Meskenas v ACP (Moral Rights)
• Burge v Swarbrick (Designs/Copyright)
• IceTV
• iiNet
• Phone Directories

     Retransmission

Copyright Tribunal sets fee for retransmission by pay television operators of free-to-air broadcasts. Pay-tv operators required to pay 22.5c per subscriber, per month, to retransmit. (3 May 2006)

     Meskenas v ACP

Meskenas v ACP Publishing in the Federal Court involved action by 89 year old artist Vladas Meskenas, whose portrait of Victor Chang was incorrectly attributed to painter Jiawei Shen when reproduced in ACP's Woman's Day magazine. Raphael FM noted in his crisp judgement, discussed here, that "no apology was provided, notwithstanding that Eugene Meskenas made approximately 90 telephone calls in total to the magazine".

In a landmark for Australia's moral rights regime the Magistrate awarded $8,000 in relation to infringement of Meskenas' moral right, commenting

I should make it clear this award relates to the conduct of the respondent and the additional hurt caused by that conduct to the applicant following his advice to it that his copyright/moral right had been infringed. It is therefore additional to the lesser sum [$1,100] awarded in respect of the original infringement

Meskenas v ACP Publishing Pty Ltd [2006] FMCA 1136 (14 August 2006) | here

     Burge v Swarbrick

In Burge the High Court set aside a finding of copyright infringement made by the Full Federal Court. That court had held that the 'plug' and fibreglass 'hull and deck mouldings' of the JS 9000 yacht designed by Swarbrick were 'works of artistic craftsmanship' under the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth). The High Court decided that problems overcome during design of the yacht (reflected in the plug and consequent mouldings) predominantly concerned function, requiring engineering skills rather than artistic effort. As a result neither the plug nor mouldings were 'works of artistic craftsmanship' and thus not gain copyright protection; they were more appropriately protected under the Designs Act 2003 (Cth).

Burge v Swarbrick [2007] HCA 17; (2007) 234 ALR 204; 81 ALJR 950 (26 April 2007) | here

     IceTV

IceTV Pty Ltd & Anor v Nine Network Australia Pty Ltd [2009] HCA 14 (22 April 2009)

     iiNet

Roadshow Films Pty Ltd v iiNet Limited (No. 3) [2010] FCA 24

     Telstra v Phone Directories Co

Telstra Corporation Limited v Phone Directories Company Pty Ltd [2010] FCA 44




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