You can't copy press unless you're with Copiepresse ...

Google: making the news
as well as facilitating
access to it

The news broke yesterday that internet search leviathan Google Inc lost its appeal against Belgian ruling that blocked it from publishing links to local newspapers on its online news service. According to the Bloomberg report, compiled by the IPKat's friend Stephanie Bodoni,

"The Court of Appeal in Brussels on May 5 upheld a 2007 lower court ruling that forced Google to remove links and snippets of articles from French- and German-language Belgian newspapers from Google.com and Google.be. Google, the owner of the world’s most-used search engine, faced a 25,000-euro ($36,300) daily fine for any delay in implementing the judgment [Quick question from Merpel, who is clueless with numbers: how long does it take Google to earn US$ 36,300?]].

Copiepresse, the group that filed the suit on behalf of the newspapers, said the snippets generated revenue for the search engines and that publishers should be paid for the content. The publications have a second suit pending in which they seek as much as 49.1 million euros for the period in which their content was visible on Google News. ...

Google said it remains committed to further collaborate with publishers in finding “new ways for them to make money from online news”. [They've found one: it's called 'Let's sue Google'] Google has the option to appeal the ruling to the Cour de Cassation, Belgium’s highest court [The Kat understands that this is more than a mere option, indeed a racing certainty. He also suspects that, if that looks likely to fail, Google will be raking over the embers of some Court of Justice of the European Union (ECJ) rulings on the interface of copyright and competition law with a view to engineering a reference to the ECJ that might either buy time or generate a favourable ruling].

“We believe Google News to be fully compliant with copyright law and we’ll review the decision to decide our next course of action,” Mountain View, California-based Google said in an emailed statement. “We believe that referencing information with short headlines and direct links to the source -- as it is practiced by search engines, Google News and just about everyone on the web -- is not only legal but also encourages web users to read newspapers online.” ...”

Google has made it plain that, if publishers do not want their websites to appear in search results, technical standards like robots.txt and metatags enable them automatically to prevent the indexation of their content. This looks a bit like having to opt out.  Can readers recall any other Google-related litigation recently, on the other side of the Atlantic, in which Google argued in favour of an opt-out ...?

Sources: "Google loses appeal over internet links to Belgian newspapers" here and "Google Loses Copyright Appeal Over Internet Links to Belgian Newspapers" here. Thank you, Toby Headdon (Berwin Leighton Paisner) for the links

Copiepresse runs aground at first instance

The IPKat has just heard from his friend Stephanie Bodoni (Bloomberg) that the copyright infringement action brought by Copiepresse, the Belgian newspapers' association, against the European Commission has been dismissed. Copiepresse alleged that the European Commission was infringing its members' copyright by linking to their articles, seeking a daily fine of 1 million euros (US$1.3 million) -- having already succeeded in a similar action against Google Inc. The Brussels Court of First Instance dismissed the claims, ruling that it lacked jurisdiction to hear the dispute at all: only a European Union court can review whether the EU's executive agency has infringed intellectual property law by posting links and snippets from articles on its websites. said the court:

"It's up to the applicant to go to the European courts which, if they found a violation by the European Communities of intellectual property rights, could order compensation".

Copiepresse is not going to give in without a fight, though. Said Margaret Boribon, the secretary general for Copiepresse: "We will appeal this decision to the Brussels court of appeal".
The IPKat is curious to see what happens next. He thinks that the Belgian court is right on the issue of jurisdiction, but remembers what happened when someone tried to sue the Commission before the Court of First Instance of the European Communities for infringing its trade mark when it adopted the euro sign. The result was not a pretty one.

Belgian patent proposal -- good sentiments, poor drafting?

The IPKat's linguistic limitations have been sorely exposed by his friend Kristof Neefs, who has sent him this link to a proposal from some deputies in the Belgian Parliament to insert a new exception into the Belgian Patent Act in order to permit the export of generic pharmaceuticals to developing countries.

Right: the IPKat prays for the compulsory licensing of Belgian chocolates ...

Kristof explains in brief that the amendment would read as follows:

"Article 28: The rights confered by a patent do not extend to ... (g) the export of generic versions of patented medicinal products to developing countries that have issued compulsory licences, to developing countries where those medicinal products have not been patented, or to developing countries that make use of the flexibility provided for in Article 30 of the TRIPs agreement".

Adds Kristof:

"I think it is highly unlikely that the proposal would pass the vote of parliament, as the authors are members of a minority party.

Second, if the exception only extends to exports, wouldn't the generics still be infringing the patent by producing the medicines, even if they were destined for export? (the proposal contains no further amendments)

Third, "to developing countries that have issued compulsory licences": that's rather broad, is it not? This would imply that the export of patented pharmaceutical A to country B would be permitted if country B has issued a compulsory licence for pharmaceutical C.

Conclusion: a lot of good intentions, but poor drafting".

The IPKat wonders whether Belgium has the equivalent of the committee stage in the UK, at which wrinkled drafting can be ironed out. Merpel wonders what measures would be proposed so as to ensure that any products made for those laudable purposes would end up there and not return to the European Union for sale on a highly profitable basis.

TRIPs and pharmaceutical patents: the World Trade Organization fact sheet here