The case of KK Sony Pc Leisure and One other v Pacific Game Expertise (Holding) Ltd [2006], involved the infringement of copyright in pc games programs underneath the title of ‘PlayStation’. The primary claimant was a Japanese company and the second claimant was its UK subsidiary. Each claimants have been company incarnations of the well-known Japanese electronics group, Sony 특허매매.
Certainly one of Sony’s products was the newest model of its extremely profitable family of pc game programs marketed underneath the title ‘PlayStation’ which the second claimant marketed and offered in over 100 international locations, together with international locations inside the European Financial Space (“EEA”). In respect of these pc game programs Sony owned:
§ 5 Neighborhood commerce marks;
§ One UK registered commerce mark (these registrations included the phrase ‘PlayStation’);
§ Two registered designs (these being a UK registered design and a Neighborhood registered design); and
§ A number of copyright works (together with the pc program, the menu icons, the floor design of the field and the person guide).
The defendant was a company included in Hong Kong which operated a website, http://www.lik-sang.com. The website had been set as much as provide on the market quite a lot of business video games, consoles and accessories for enjoying music, video games and such objects. The defendant additionally marketed and provided on the market from its website portable consoles (PSP consoles) and associated games, films and accessories.
The PSP consoles so provided have been real products made by Sony on the market inside the Japanese market solely. The claimants’ case was that by concentrating on clients within the EEA, particularly, the UK, the defendant had infringed Sony’s mental property rights related to the PSP consoles. Additionally they submitted that the mental property rights within the objects related to the PSP (such because the packaging) had additionally been infringed. They sought applicable injunctions, supply up, disclosure of names, and an enquiry as to damages, or within the various, an account of earnings and prices.
Following an unsuccessful utility by the defendant for the court docket to say no to train its jurisdiction, the motion continued undefended. The problems to be thought-about earlier than the court docket have been:
§ Whether or not the claimants had consented to have the related products offered within the EEA; and
§ Whether or not by providing the products on the market on its website, the defendant had fallen inside any of the acts which gave rise to infringement underneath the related statute.
The appliance was allowed. The acts complained of had been perpetrated not in Hong Kong, however within the EEA, and with out Sony’s consent. Have been these acts, complained of, dedicated bodily inside the EEA they might have been infringing acts. The digital middleman of a website which focussed at the least partially on the EEA couldn’t make them any much less so. The claimants have been subsequently entitled to the reliefs sought.
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