LEGS8007 Repeat Essays & Cases

Exam Paper

Students who are registered for the summer 2017/18 sitting of this module (CRN:25876) will receive communication from the exams office about the date and time of the repeat exam.  The format of the exam paper will be similar to the sample paper and the two past exam papers.  The exam for this module contributes 50% of the overall marks.

The exam for the repeat of this module will be on the 24th May at 10 am in Melbourn.

Essays


This is a list of essays from which students may choose any two.  Each essay contributed 25% to the overall mark.  Do not assume that the essays you wrote for the first attempt are your best choice for the repeat.  Although you may have done some research for them, you might want to consider starting again.  Submit via TurnItIn.com before noon on Friday 11 May.

Make sure you understand what is plagiarism.  You would have covered this in CMOD6001 Creativity, Innovation, and Teamwork in Semester 1 of Year 1.  Refer back to your notes.  Copying and pasting chunks of text from the web is not the way to go about completing these assignments.

Although I have provided some guidance for each essay, students are free to take any approach they wish to the titles.


1. Is Intellectual Property Really Property?
  • What is property?
  • What is intellectual property?
  • In what ways in intellectual property like regular property?
  • In what ways is intellectual property unlike regular property?
  • Can you have property without law?
  • Intellectual property isn't tangible, but how tangible is any property anyway?
  • [Don't use the term 'real property' that has a specific legal meaning]

2. How might Walter v Lane be decided in 2017?
  • Describe the case. What happened? What was it about? What were the central issues? Who won and why?
  • What does the decision say about the test for originality in English law?
  • Project the case into 2017. How difficult would it be to transcribe a speech in 2017? If we applied the same test in 2017 would we get the same result? Why?


3. Digital Rights Management
  • Describe the problems faced by rights holders
  • What is DRM and how does it solve these problems
  • What problems does DRM cause for consumers. Give some examples of fails
  • Does DRM alienate paying customers?
  • Does DRM even work?


4. Copyright Law in Ireland is in Need of Reform.
  • Read the report of the Copyright Review Committee. There are lots of ideas there.
  • Pick 3 or 5 areas and write about them.
  • Add some insight of your own
  • You will probably need to refer to specific Sections of the Copyright & Related Rights Act 2000. [This was amended since but not in any ways that you need to worry about] 
  • Note this is an essay about copyright law in Ireland


5. UKIP: The possible impacts of Brexit on IP Law in the UK
  • Sources of law in the UK. [The same as in Ireland but the UK has no written Constitution]
  • Sources of IP Law in the UK
  • What elements of UK IP law come from EU Directives & Regulations and the ECHR?
  • Is the test of originality in copyright influenced by continental law?


6. The Idea/Expression Dichotomy

  • The idea/expression dichotomy is ...
  • Example.
  • Sometimes the options for expression are so limited that they cannot be distinct from the idea.  This is merger.  Example: Kenrick v Lawrence (1890) 25 Q.B.D. 99
  • Sometimes the boundary is difficult to draw. Examples: Temple Island Collections v New English Teas [2012] EWPCC 1  and/or Designers Guild v Russel Williams [2001] E.C.D.R. 10
  • English and Continental tests for originality.  Is the shift in English law the result of Continental influences?


7. Graduated Response
  • Problems faced by rights holders
  • How does graduated response solve these problems?
  • What about the rights of the ISPs? No general obligation to monitor?
  • Case C-70/10 Scarlet Extended SA v Société belge des auteurs, compositeurs et éditeurs SCRL (SABAM)
  • What about the rights of individuals?
  • Is internet access a human right?
  • Khurshid Mustafa and Tarzibachi v Sweden
  • Sony v UPC [2016] IECA 231
  • IPKitten Blog

8. What the FCUK? Immoral Trade Marks

  • We covered this extensively in the lectures





  • Explain the FCUK decision? Does that mean that fuck is OK in the UK?
  • Do some research of your own to find examples that were not mentioned e.g US
  • Maybe find some examples of trade mark that were allowed but you think should not have been
  • Where do you think the threshold should be?
  • Are trade marks expression that should be protected from interference?
  • Are trade marks property that should be protected from interference?



9. Is the UDRP fair?
  • What is cybersquatting?
  • Why is it a difficult problem? (costs, jurisdiction, different laws)
  • What is the UDRP?
  • Why is it better?
  • How does it work? What are the tests?
  • Give an (Irish) example
  • Are there flaws in the system that tilt it in favour of the claimant? (trade mark owner)


10. Unconventional Trade Marks

  • Sieckmann criteria
  • Since the requirement for graphical representation is on the way out don't focus on that. Focus instead in the capability of "being represented on the Register of European Union trade marks"
  • Sieckmann + being represented on the register =  test
  • Discuss possible application of test to small marks and one other unconventional mark 


11. Patents, Drugs, and the Developing World

  • What is a patent?
  • What role to parents play in the business model of drug companies
  • Would be have drugs without patents?
  • Cost of production relative sale price
  • Poor people are dying because they can't pay for drugs
  • Should we make drug companies give the drugs for free? Consequences? Solutions?



12. Vote Yes / Vote No: A Guide to the Unified Patent Court Referendum. (You have been asked by the referendum commission to write a guide for the Irish people explaining the vote on the Unified Patent Court)




Cases

This is a list of cases with which students should be familiar. There will be an exam question on cases.


COPYRIGHT
  • Finian v Columba, (AD 567)
  • Millar v Taylor, (1769) 4 Burr. 2303; 98 ER 201
  • Hinton v Donaldson, SCS 1 July 1773
  • Donaldson v Becket, (1774) 2 Brown's Parl. Cases (2d ed.) 129
  • Phonographic Performance (Ireland) Ltd v Cody, [1998] 4 I.R. 504 at 511
  • Walter v Lane [1900] AC 539
  • Temple Island Collections v New English Teas  [2012] EWPCC 1 
  • Designers Guild v Russel Wiliams [2001] E.C.D.R. 10
  • Interlego v Tyco Industries
  • Kelly v Morris (1865-66) L.R. 1 Eq. 697
  • Cramp (GA) & Sons Ltd v Frank Smythson Ltd [1944] AC 329
  • Kenrick v Lawrence (1890) 25 Q.B.D. 99
  • Feist Publications v Rural Telephone Service 499 US 340 (1991)
  • Bell South v Donnelly Information Publishing 999 F 2d 1436 (11th Cir, 1993)
  • British Horseracing Board v William Hill [2001] RPC 31
  • Case C-70/10 Scarlet  v SABAM
  • Sony v UPC [2016] IECA 231
  • Khurshid Mustafa and Tarzibachi v Sweden


TRADE MARKS

  • Reckitt & Coleman v Borden, [1990] 1 All E.R. 873
  • C&A Modes v C&A Modes Waterford, [1976] IR 198
  • McCambridge Limited v Joseph Brennan Bakeries, [2012] IESC 46 (2012)
  • Libertel, C-104/01
  • Sieckmann, C-273/00
  • FCUK Trade Mark, [2007] R.P.C. 1
  • SCREW YOU, EUIPO Case R0495/2005-G
  • SuperMacs v McDonalds Opposition 002386582  (and Appeal Case R0484/2016-1)



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