Proving provenance? Geographical indications certification and its ambiguities

With their historic links to a specific region, GIs are increasingly valued for their endogenous development potential. But precisely what does legal recognition as a GI guarantee? Drawing on the EU’s registration system as a model, this paper investigates the certification of provenance and authenticity by public authorities. Recent empirical findings reveal that considerable flexibility exists within the certification process, which permits the loosening of linkages to a region and dilutes the certification guarantee. The present over-reliance on the system’s ability to certify could be usefully remedied if greater attention is paid to the individual product specification design

The incremental growth of unfair competition law in India

• In keeping with other common law jurisdictions, India lacks a unified legal basis for protection against unfair competition. There is no single legislative reference point, or standalone tort of unfair competition. India instead offers up a menu of specific statutory options, common law torts and the equitable action against a breach of confidence, to satisfy its international obligations to prevent unfair competition. • There have been two noteworthy developments in recent years: (i) the tort of malicious falsehood has gradually abandoned a strict malice requirement, such that (objectively assessed) disparaging advertising is now actionable; and (ii) an emerging right of publicity, to prevent image misappropriation, is taking shape but its foundations are unclear. • One (non)development also deserves closer scrutiny. A claim drafting trend has emerged whereby plaintiffs petition courts to prevent ‘unfair competition’, or ‘misappropriation’. This implies that a nominate tort of unfair competition, or one of misappropriation, exists in Indian law. However, when directly approached to create a tort against misappropriation per se, Indian courts have declined this invitation, based on compelling reasons. • Both litigants and courts need to be more careful in their use of such terminology. As things presently stand, there is no tort of unfair competition, nor of misappropriation, in Indian law

Law(s) against unfair competition: the legitimacy of the UK approach

• The UK lacks a unified legal basis for the prevention of unfair competition. Instead, the UK offers up an unfair competition menu consisting of individual torts or equitable wrongs (primarily passing off, injurious falsehood, defamation and the breach of confidence), the prohibition of misleading practices under consumer protection law, trade mark law and codes of advertising regulation. • In terms of their cumulative coverage, these regimes overlap considerably with the protection available under civilian unfair competition regimes. It is therefore more accurate to say that the UK has laws against unfair competition. But are they cumulatively sufficient? • This article evaluates one important facet of this question—whether the UK approach complies with relevant international treaty obligations contained in Article10bis of the Paris Convention—concluding that it does. The basis for this conclusion is the detailed analysis of international unfair competition prevention obligations contained in WTO Dispute Settlement Panel Report, Australia—Tobacco Plain Packaging

Panoptic brand protection? Algorithmic ascendancy in online marketplaces

Leading online marketplaces including Amazon, eBay, and the Alibaba group, have embraced proactive automated content recognition (ACR) filters, to detect counterfeits that infringe trade mark rights. However, there has been a recent shift from explainable, rules-based filters to more opaque, machine-learning-powered technology. This paper analyses whether the new EU Digital Services Act (DSA) can bring greater transparency and accountability to this model of algorithmic trade mark enforcement

Lightning in a Bottle? Wine GIs and Disruptive Innovation: Lightning in a Bottle

This article examines the intersection of innovation and tradition in the context of Geographical Indications (GIs) for wine, focusing on the transformative potential of New Genomic Techniques (NGTs) in viticulture. GIs signal provenance, whilst requiring a commitment to traditional production methods. However, viticulture in the EU today faces several challenges, including climate change, increasing competition from New World wine producers, and shifting consumer preferences. Innovation is an important resource for meeting these challenges. NGTs, exemplified by CRISPR technology, enable precise genetic modifications to promote traits such as disease resistance while preserving the genetic identity of traditional grape varieties. They hold out the promise of reconciling innovation with tradition. The European Commission’s Proposal for a Regulation on plants obtained by certain new genomic techniques (COM(2023) 411 final) could pave the way for their adoption across the wine sector. However, the adoption of NGTs within this sector raises complex regulatory, legal, and socio-economic questions. The novel contribution of the study is to analyse the compatibility of NGTs with the European Union’s strict GI regulations, considering public perception challenges related to biotechnology, and implications for wine typicity and varietal diversity. In bridging the domains of GIs, biosafety regulation, and agricultural innovation, this study identifies the challenges to be overcome by the EU wine sector when seeking to reconcile its deep-rooted traditions with the radical potential of NGTs

Creativity, artificial intelligence, and the requirement of human authors and inventors in copyright and patent law

Copyright and patent law require the identification of an author or inventor, and further require the author or inventor to be human. We explore this requirement primarily with reference to U.S. law and provide additional illustrations from U.K. and E.U. law. A key rationale underlying the requirement of a human author or inventor is that there is something special and important about human creativity. As AI, particularly generative AI, becomes more capable of producing outputs that look like they could have been human-created, arguments have increasingly been raised that the AI-generated outputs should be afforded copyright and patent protection, on the same basis as those made by human authors and inventors. And there have been arguments that these AI-generated outputs exhibit sufficient creativity, novelty, or innovativeness, to satisfy the laws’ underlying creativity rationale. We examine the concept of creativity from a multidisciplinary perspective, and identify three conceptually distinct components, all of which are necessary for a complete account of creativity. The external component refers to whether an artifact (or idea, or other thing) exhibits the qualities of being novel, valuable, and (on some accounts) surprising. The subjective component focuses on the psychological process of a creative act, which appears to involve a dance between task-focused and mental-wandering states, mediated by a salience functionality, where the person recognizes and selects novel, appropriate ideas. Third, embedded in the analysis of both the external and subjective components is a (largely-implicit) recognition that the social context is integral to creativity; it plays a role in determining whether an artifact has value (or is “appropriate”), and influences the subjective psychological process of plucking certain ideas or conceptions out of the flow of mental activity. With this enriched account of creativity, we examine how copyright and patent law value not only the creativity of the artifact, but also (to varying extents) the subjective role and social context as part of creativity. We then consider some ways in which arguments that AI generated artifacts should be eligible for IP protection (e.g., because they are “just as good as” at least some human-generated and IP-eligible artifacts) are insufficient to satisfy the enriched understanding of the creativity requirement underlying the IP laws

(Re)locating geographical indications

This project is organised around the response to a single Thesis Question; If a product bears the place name "X" but does not in fact originate there, when does and when should this contravene principles of intellectual property law? Effectively, when does and when should this branch of the law prohibit the use of 'Californian Champagne'? Responses to this question have emerged over the course of a century of contentious international debates concerning the protection of Geographical Indications (GIs). The project first seeks to locate historical responses to this question within their broader context. The principal set of responses is provided by the law of unfair competition, with its prohibition of conduct which either misleads consumers or results In the misappropriation goodwill.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo