Poland - IP law news and resources

10.000 people protest against ACTA in Krakow, Poland

2012-01-25T13:56:00.000-08:00

I'm very impressed by the number of people who gathered today to protest against ACTA in Krakow. Police reports say that 10.000 protesters took part in the march. I don't know how many of the protesters heave actually read the text of the agreement (I'm sure it's less than 3%) but this manifestation shows that the modern society uses technology so well that a revolution may be organized within hours, without any plans or centralized power behind it. I’m also happy that there was no riots as it happened in Kielce city. The scale of protest is very surprising to me, because when ACTA was negotiated at the international level the issues of blurred legislative process was well known. Moreover the Polish government applied in the course of EU negotiations to remove the secrecy clause out of the documents. For this moment it’s no longer important. The government in the course of the Polish legislative process made one mistake. The public consultations were conducted in secrecy, without participation of NGO's. It was revealed by one of the major newspapers that only music industry organizations (e.g. ZAIKS that is a Polish RIAA) and big corpos were represented. This issue raised so much anger. I believe that people today did not protest against ACTA itself, but against making the laws above their heads.

Class action in Poland - close to introduction

2009-11-07T02:51:00.000-08:00

Long awaited regulations concerning introduction to te Polish legal system of class action suits will be withhold until some important issues will be clarified. Among others the discussion will be aimed towards renumeration of the law professionals taking the case (the last proposal is to allow no more than 20 % of the claim), court fees (normally 5% will be reduced to 2%). The claims may be result of a delict or a contract. Te new regulation will be introduced in c.a. 8 monhts.

Internet gambling banned in Poland ?

2009-11-06T07:29:00.000-08:00

The Polish government proposes a new law aimed at total delegalization of the internet gambling in Poland. This is a consequence of the recent policital affair which wiped out three ministers from Donald Tusk cabinet. What measures will be introduced ? Today it was announced that certain 'unlawfull' internet domains will be blocked. When asked for details the Prime Minister stated that 'yes, it can be done'. So how they will do it ? Maybe this will be te task of the newly appointed chief of NASK - the polish organization which administers the Polish web. Mr Chrzanowski was formerly a Director of the teleinformatics security department at ABW secret service... Now taking togehter the circumstances and the timeline it's clear that the Government wants to hold control over the Internet.

Data Protection Commisioner will keep an eye on Google Street View Service

2009-05-19T02:23:00.000-07:00

GIODO, the Polish authority responsible for protecting our personal data has published a short opinion on Google Street View service. In the opinion of the Commissioner the service cannot be prohibited a limine, but Google will be observed by GIODO. Some commentators viciously noted that GIODO is observed by Google by itself - the new web page of this governmental agenda uses Google Analytics script to monitor the traffic on the page ... Apart of that GIODO uses Google search bar on the front page with the Google logo on it. Personally I share the opinion that GIODO has no formal competences to act in this case. The Act on the protection of personal data limits the scope of GIODO’s power to the personal data protection, which does not cover the privacy issues. The latter may be the subject of protection given under civil code which defines privacy as a legal right, protected through civil remedies.

Polish privacy and data protection guidance

2009-03-31T13:00:00.001-07:00

If you are looking for some advice on Polish priacy and data protection laws, please visit website about data protection in Poland.

Before you copy "some" code or "some" macros

2008-09-17T12:27:00.000-07:00

What constitutes software copyright infringement ? How much can you copy from other programs ? Can you copy 50 lines out of 500.000 ? Get more information how this matter was handled by the US courts from the post written by Tomasz Rychlicki on his blog.

Data protection once again

2008-02-24T13:42:00.000-08:00

After problems with data protection compliance of most popular Polish social - network site Nasza-klasa.pl the problems touched a company responisble for draw of tickets for EURO 2008. In the fisrt day of gathering the data a data leak happened. Such information as PESEL (evidentional number of every citizen), bank account number, credit card number was avaliable for othe users. Data Protection Commisioner Office started investigation. The owner may face adminsiatrative fine and in the worst scenario may be senteced for imprisoment up to 2 years ! Take care when you do business it the web.

Katowice goes Open Source

2008-02-24T13:36:00.000-08:00

Katowice, a city in Silesia goes Open Source. The magistrate resigned from MS Office and is buing just Open Office - the PR men says - " Up to date we bought 327 computers with Open Office only, saving thus 300 kPLN (around EUR 85 k ) a year. Wish you luck !

New Connect - hi-tech stock exchange market

2008-02-04T10:26:00.000-08:00

New Connect is the stock exchange market created for hi-tech companies as a part of Warsaw Stock Exchange.

Amendments to the Polish Data Protection Law.

2008-01-17T10:27:00.000-08:00

The main Polish legal act concerning personal data protection will be updated soon. The project and the description of changes are available on the Polish President’s website. As can be read in the aforementioned documents, the most important changes relate to fines and pecuniary penalties. There are also some minor changes important to notice, for example concerning individual’s agree to process it’s data (it can be revoked, now). According to the project, the Inspector General will have more possibilities to make the data controllers obey the Act of 29 August 1997 on the Protection of Personal Data. It will be possible to fine anyone breaking the rules of data processing from EUR 1000 to EUR 100 000.

If the project is voted through in the Sejm and Senat, the data controllers and their employees may be fined 300% of their monthly salaries. There is one new penal provision related to the files registration in Inspector General for the Protection of Personal Data, pursuant to which it is required to notice any changes of information given to Inspector General during file registration.

Personal data protection

2007-09-09T14:33:00.000-07:00

Unofficial information was published in Rzeczpospolita newspaper - General Inspector for Personal Data Protection is preparing an act amending the Act on the Personal Data Protection which will enable the General Inspector to put administrative fines up to EUR 100.000 on companies which are non-compliant with the Act. Together with the criminal labiality of the members of the board risk related to the personal data processing will be much stronger.

Protection of personal data in Poland - main facts

2007-08-23T10:55:00.000-07:00

The most important legal act concerning protection of personal data in Poland is the Act on of 29 August 1997 on the Protection of Personal Data. The act establishes the Inspector General and determines framework of the personal data processing. Inspector General is competent in the issues concerning personal data protection and may inspect any subject who process personal data. Entities which belong to the EEA (European Economic Area) are obliged to comply with the Act on the Protection of Personal Data only if they operate in the territory of Poland. This means that almost every company registered in Polish National Court Register have to comply with the Act.

The main requirements for the data controller (in most cases – your company operating in Poland) are:

To process personal data on the basis of legal prerequsites

To inform data subject about its rights and the data controller status

To register the data files in the Inspector General Office

To secure the personal data from uncontrolled access

To remove the personal data in case of request from data subject

Personal data usually can not be transferred outside of EEA (European Economic Area) without prior approval of the data subject. However, it can be transferred without restrictions in the European Union and few other countries (e.g. Norway, Island, Lichtenstein).

Not applying the provisions of the Polish Act on Personal Data Protection can lead to criminal responsibility, in some cases even to three years of imprisonment. More often it leads to the administrative proceeding.

In case of any questions please contact the author.

Poland ranked 1st by The Federation of European Employers

2007-08-09T05:05:00.000-07:00

The Federation of European Employers put Poland on the top of the list of most attrictive countries for employeers. Poland scores positively on labour supply, labour relations and labour flexibility and its only negative score is in its level of internet skills. Each of the other top-rated countries share high scores on labour capability, although three (Denmark, Switzerland and the UK) suffer from labour supply problems and two (Denmark and Switzerland) from high wage costs The web page informs also that this ranking is not followed by direct foreign investement. In relation to Poland this statement is not true as you may check in the previous post.

Foreign investment in Poland

2007-08-02T02:34:00.000-07:00

Polish Information and Foreign Investment Agency has announced that value of direct foriegn investments reached 6 billion zlotys (approx. EUR 2 bilions). This value places Poland on the list of the most popular places to invest in the world. Please check a presentation on law of foreign investment in Poland prepared for our clients.

Be careful when using agreement templates

2007-05-30T10:16:00.000-07:00

Looking for software development contract ? Or bespoke agreement ? It is not much complicated to find on Google some templates of such agreements but using them may be tricky for you. Please bear in mind that each contract shall have it's own structure and obligations. It is better to write with your own words what are you willing to do with your client then to conclude 30-pages long agreement in which 90% of the content will be useless and what is more dangerous - confusing for the reader. It’s just the conclusion of the day : )

Will Apple sue Polish Football Association for Euro 2012 presentation ?

2007-05-12T23:28:00.000-07:00

It is reported that Apple considers taking legal steps against Polish Football Association for alleged copyright infringment. Apple asserts that a presentation used by Polish - Ukraine Euro 2012 team at Cardiff to present the joint offer of these two countreis infringes a copyrighted iPod commercial. There is no doubt that the clips below are similar and the author of "football" one was inspired by iPod ad. As to the infringment .. please judge by yourself. In my opinion it's just the inspiration, following the general idea , therefore it can't be considered as copyright infringment. Generally, Apple has many 'copyright' troubles with Poles recently - please read the story of Tomasz Rychlicki who published at his blog the alternative set of iPhone icons.

WIPO report on cybersquatting and ADR

2007-03-15T02:12:00.000-07:00

There is a new report published by WIPO which summarizes cybersquatting activity in year 2006. "The number of cybersquatting disputes filed with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in 2006 increased by 25% as compared to 2005. In a related development, the evolution of the domain name registration system is causing growing concern for trademark owners, in particular some of the effects of the use of computer software to automatically register expired domain names and their ‘parking’ on pay-per-click portal sites, the option to register names free-of-charge for a five-day ‘tasting’ period, the proliferation of new registrars, and the establishment of new generic Top Level Domains (gTLDs). The combined result of these developments is to create greater opportunities for the mass, often anonymous, registration of domain names without specific consideration of third-party intellectual property rights. While electronic commerce has flourished with the expansion of the Internet, recent developments in the domain name registration system have fostered practices which threaten the interests of trademark owners and cause consumer confusion. Practices such as ‘domain name tasting’ risk turning the domain name system into a mostly speculative market. Domain names used to be primarily specific identifiers of businesses and other Internet users, but many names nowadays are mere commodities for speculative gain,” noted Mr. Francis Gurry, WIPO Deputy Director General, who oversees WIPO’s dispute resolution work. “The rate at which domain names change hands and the difficulty to track such mass automated registrations challenge trademark owners in their pursuit of cybersquatters,” he said. “With domain names becoming moving targets for rights holders, due consideration should be given to concrete policy responses,” he added.

In 2006, a total of 1,823 (gTLDs and country code Top Level Domains (ccTLDs)) complaints alleging cybersquatting – the abusive registration as domain names of trademarks – were filed with WIPO’s Arbitration and Mediation Center (Center), representing the highest number of cybersquatting cases handled by WIPO since the year 2000.

Since commencement in December 1999 of the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) – a quick and cost effective dispute resolution procedure – through December 2006, 10,177 UDRP or UDRP-based cases (gTLD and ccTLD) have been filed with the Center, covering 18,760 separate domain names.

When .info Sunrise, .biz STOP, .name ERDRP and .mobi Sunrise and Premium Name cases are added to these UDRP figures, the total number of cases comes to 25,815 (Annex 1). Due to the temporary applicability of these policies, the non-UDRP cases are received on a one-off basis. All of the .info and .biz cases were completed in 2006; of the .mobi cases, five Sunrise cases have been completed and 74 Premium Name cases were completed in 2006.

A total of 9,389 (97% of total cases) UDRP cases received by the Center have so far been resolved. Of the gTLD cases resolved, decisions have been rendered in 7,328 cases with some 84% of those cases ending with the transfer of the domain name to the complainant and approximately 16% being denied. 2,061 cases have terminated on other grounds, primarily on the basis of settlement agreements between parties transferring the domain name to the complainant (Annex 2).

Another development in 2006 was the filing of the 10,000^th WIPO UDRP complaint. An American party (Sam Ash Music Corporation) filed a complaint against an individual from China who had registered the domain name . The language of the proceeding was Chinese and a WIPO panel decision transferring the name was notified in early February of 2007. In addition, the 25,000^th WIPO domain name case under all policies (UDRP and ‘Sunrise’) was filed on August 19, 2006. The WIPO panelist ordered the transfer of the domain name to the trademark owner, the Red Lion Hotels chain.

The WIPO dispute resolution procedure served a wide range of users, ranging from well-known brands, to smaller enterprises and organizations, as well as individuals. They covered categories including luxury items, famous persons, entertainment, hospitality, sports, gambling, and pharmaceuticals. In addition, charitable organizations and educational institutions were involved.

A number of disputes relating to newly merged or collaborating corporations were also filed. Such merger cases suggest that cybersquatters tend to follow newsworthy events. This is also evident from the spate of cases involving the Tamiflu trademark filed at the height of international concern about an avian flu pandemic in 2006 in relation to such domain names as , , and . The complainants were Swiss company F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG and its American subsidiary, the manufacturers of Tamiflu, an antiviral pharmaceutical preparation for the treatment and prevention of influenza. A total of 34 cases covering 64 domain names were filed with WIPO in 2006 which were related in some form to the Tamiflu trademark.

Hoffmann-La Roche have also filed UDRP complaints based on other trademarked products, such as Valium. Other pharmaceutical companies that have filed WIPO cases in the past include Pharmacia & Upjohn (in relation to Rogaine), American Home Products, McNeil Consumer Brands (Tylenol), Pfizer (Viagra), Merck, Sanofi-Aventis (Ambien), CVS Pharmacy, Lilly ICOS, Valeant, and Bayer.

Since registration of domain names in non-Roman scripts such as Arabic, Chinese, Cyrillic or Korean (“internationalized” domain names) became available a few years ago, the Center has received a total of 60 cases involving such names, of which eight were received in 2006. With the spreading of Internet connections and online commerce, the proportion of domain name disputes of this type is expected to increase in coming years.

Geographical Distribution of Parties

Though the geographical spread of named parties to WIPO UDRP cases (gTLD and ccTLD) reached 137 countries at the end of December 2006, the most frequently named party country both for complainants and for respondents continued to be the United States of America (USA). The most frequently named complainant countries in gTLD cases after the USA were France, United Kingdom, Germany, Spain, Switzerland, Italy, Canada, Australia, and Netherlands. The most named respondent countries after the USA were the UK, China, Republic of Korea, Canada, Spain, France, Australia, Italy, and Russia. A full overview of all countries involved is available at http://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/statistics/cumulative/countries.html.

Country-Code Top Level Domain Cases

The number of ccTLD registries which have designated WIPO to provide domain name dispute resolution services is 47. The full list of these countries is available at http://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/cctld. A new addition in 2006 was the .es (Spain) domain. Under the applicable regulations, established in consultation with the WIPO Center, a claimant must prove to a WIPO-appointed Spanish panelist that the registration or use of a .es name constitutes an infringement of intellectual property rights protected in Spain.

By December 2006, the Center had received 496 cases involving domain names registered in ccTLDs. Of these, 446 have been resolved, with 273 decisions in favor of the complainant, 52 decisions in favor of the respondent, 121 settlements between the parties, and 39 cases pending on December 31. (These ccTLD case statistics are limited to administrative procedures and do not include ccTLD cases that are administered under arbitration and mediation rules, such as those for the .nl ccTLD (Netherlands) and the .pl ccTLD (Poland).)

On January 17, 2006, international investment bank Morgan Stanley filed the first complaint under the WIPO-administered dispute resolution policy for .ae (United Arab Emirates). This case involved the domain name , held by an individual residing in Australia, and was settled between the parties.

.MOBI and Other New gTLDs

The new ‘sponsored’ gTLD <.mobi> was launched in May 2006 by the registry, Mobile Top Level Domain Ltd. (mTLD), as a domain “dedicated to delivering the Internet to mobile devices.” As with all gTLDs, the UDRP applies to .mobi. In addition, two separate domain-specific procedures were created and administered by the WIPO Center at the request of and in collaboration with the registry.

The first special procedure applicable to .mobi consisted of the unprecedented Premium Name Trademark Application Rules for .MOBI. This mechanism enabled trademark owners to reclaim so-called Premium Names, the generic value of which had led the registry to reserve these for auction or other commercial allocation. During the Premium Name application period, which lasted from September 15 to October 13, 2006, the Center received 105 applications. In 2006, the Center completed the processing of 74 of these applications which were decided by WIPO panelists under special conditions relating to the registration and use of corresponding trademarks.

The second special procedure applicable to .mobi consisted of the .mobi Sunrise Challenge Policy, which allowed interested parties to challenge .mobi names inappropriately registered during a special registration period that had been reserved for trademark owners under the .MOBI Sunrise Registration Policy. During the challenge period, which lasted from August 28 to December 15, 2006, the Center received 18 challenges, five of which were processed in 2006.

On October 10, 2006, WIPO received the first UDRP complaint involving a name in the .mobi gTLD. The parties, both from the UK, disputed the name. A WIPO panel issued a transfer decision on December 12 ( http://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/decisions/html/2006/d2006-1309.html).

WIPO received its first UDRP case involving a name registered in the .travel gTLD on March 17, 2006, in relation to the name . A WIPO Panel denied the complaint ( http://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/decisions/html/2006/d2006-0344.html).

Due to the opportunities for cybersquatting in new domains and the profusion of registration and dispute resolution processes that have been offered in respect of such domains so far, the 2005 WIPO report ‘New Generic Top-Level Domains: Intellectual Property Considerations’ (available at http://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/reports/newgtld-ip/index.html) has noted the need for a uniform preventive process in the introductory phase of gTLDs; a standard Sunrise process would reduce confusion and offer time and cost benefits.

Developments in the Domain Name Registration System

The combined effect of developments such as: the use of ‘Whois’ privacy services for registrations; the growth in the number of professional domain name dealers and the volume of their activity; the use of computer software to automatically register expired domain names and their ‘parking’ on pay-per-click portal sites; the option to register names for free for a five-day ‘tasting’ period; the growth in the number of accredited registrars; and the establishment of new gTLDs, is to create greater opportunities for mass registration of domain names. Such registrations are often anonymously undertaken on a serial basis without particular attention to third-party intellectual property rights. Traditionally, cybersquatting involved the registration of domain names by individuals seeking to sell the ‘squatted’domain name. Nowadays, ‘domainers’ derive income from the large-scale automated registration of domain names. They acquire domain name portfolios, buy and sell domain names, and park domain names, claiming a significant share of the well over 100 million domain names that are now registered.

There is a rapid growth of domain parking sites, on which links to other sites are organized and indexed. These links usually operate on a ‘pay-per-click’ basis with registrants and parking services sharing revenue generated by web traffic. This is fueling rapid growth in ‘domaining’ and registrar activities.

Domain name tasting is a practice in which a person or entity (who may be affiliated with a registrar) registers a domain name for a five-day grace period without payment of the registration fee, and parks it on a pay-per-click website monitored for revenue, whereupon the name is dropped or re-registered by a new registrant, thereby starting a new grace period. Only those domain names generating significant traffic are permanently registered. As a result of computer applications, tens of millions of domain names are temporarily registered on this basis each month.

Increasingly, service providers are offering Whois privacy services allowing domain name registrations to be made through a proxy registrant, which is often a registrar-related entity. One reason for such identity-shield developments is to avoid registrants receiving ‘spam’ as a result of their contact details being made publicly available on the Whois database. WIPO panel decisions are beginning to explore the practical implications for the UDRP of these developments, for example in terms of whether or not the privacy service discloses the identity of its client once the service has been alerted to concerns of trademark infringement. The fundamental assumption of the UDRP is that the formal respondent for case purposes is to be found in the applicable Whois database.

WIPO panels have generally held that for a domain name to be transferred under the UDRP, there needs to be some indication that the registration was made with the intention of taking advantage of the complainant-trademark owner’s rights in that name. With regard to bulk buyers of domain names using automated registration processes, a WIPO panel decision issued in February 2006 found that failure to conduct prior checks for third-party rights in certain circumstances would represent ‘willful blindness,’ representing bad faith under the UDRP (Mobile Communications Services Inc. v. WebReg RN, WIPO Case No. D2005-1304, http://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/decisions/html/2005/d2005-1304.html; see also, Media General Communications, Inc. v. Rarenames, WebReg, WIPO Case No. D2006-0964, http://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/decisions/html/2006/d2006-0964.html). This is an example of how the application of the UDRP decision criteria must accommodate changing circumstances and new developments.

Background on UDRP

The UDRP, which was proposed by WIPO in 1999 and has become accepted as an international standard for resolving domain name disputes, is designed specifically to discourage and resolve the abusive registration of trademarks as domain names. Under the UDRP, a complainant must demonstrate that the disputed domain name is identical or confusingly similar to its trademark, that the respondent does not have a right or legitimate interest in the domain name and that the respondent registered and used the domain name in bad faith.

Disputes are decided by independent panelists drawn from the Center’s list of 400 trademark specialists from over 50 countries. The domain name registration in question is frozen (suspended) during the proceedings. After carefully reviewing each case, panelists submit their decisions within a period of 14 days. If a panelist’s decision to transfer a domain name is not challenged in court within a period of ten days, the registrar is legally bound to implement the panelist’s decision.

All panel decisions are posted on the Center’s web site. To facilitate access to the decisions, the Center also offers a unique online legal Index, which is proving a popular resource for WIPO parties and panelists in undertaking detailed jurisprudential research. The Center also offers an overview of broad decision trends, via the WIPO Overview of WIPO Panel Views on Selected UDRP Questions which distils thousands of UDRP cases handled by the Center. The Overview is an important instrument to help maintain the consistency of WIPO UDRP jurisprudence. It identifies common and important substantive and procedural questions and the views expressed in WIPO panel decisions on those questions, with reference to decisions that are considered representative of those views. The Overview is available at http://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/search/overview/index.html.

In addition to processing domain name disputes, the Center administers the WIPO Arbitration and WIPO Mediation Rules, which contract parties can designate for disputes that may arise out of any type of intellectual property transaction which they conclude. The Center’s growing caseload includes licensing disputes in the area of patents (e.g. in biotech or medical technology), disputes concerning information technology, research and development issues, and cases in the area of entertainment. More information about this area of the Center’s work is available at http://www.wipo.int/amc/en/center/background.html and at http://www.wipo.int/amc/en/center/caseload.html.

For further information please contact the Media Relations and Public Affairs Section at:

Tel: (+41 22) - 338 81 61 or 338 95 47 Fax: (+41 22) - 338 82 80 Email: publicinf@wipo.int.

[Annexes [PDF]]

Compter games industry lawsuits

2007-02-15T03:50:00.000-08:00

A nice list of computer games industry lawsuits is published on Patent Arcade blog, among them a summary of copyright suit against LindenLab.

Cork wins ADR ... who's next ? The gate is open

2007-02-05T07:15:00.000-08:00

City of Cork wins with Traffic Web Holding. What does it mean for other "infected" cities? It means that in the view of the Panel deciding in this case a name of the city is recognized as the prior art in the meaning of the article 10.3 of the Regulation. Therefore, the local authorities do not have to register a trademark to claim for a domain grabbed by TWB, however, next Panel is not obliged to share this view (there is no precedence rule here) . In my the TWB's registrations are clearly abusive and the domain names should be revoked.

New blawg of IPGEEK

2006-09-10T02:03:00.000-07:00

A very informative Dutch blawg IPGEEK managed by Mr Severin de Wit about the European patent law was recently added to my favorites. If you like to be informed about interesting European patent cases, fresh news about legal developments like CII Directive or software patents being granted in Europe you just have to visit it !

The last bell

2006-09-07T03:13:00.000-07:00

If your domian was registered on the basis of the Benelux trademark or tradename with ampersands or dots please hurry with commencing an ADR proceeding. After Sunrise Appeal Period is over you will have to posses a trademark (national or Community) to claim for the domain. As it is a good news for the trademark owners it is not for the companies witout any registered rights.

Almost 3000 domains grabbed (?)

2006-08-24T04:19:00.000-07:00

After short vacation in Paris (really nice city :) I'm coming back to the domian.com@gmial.com case. I've received more information about Zheng and his way of doing 'business', but this one is exceptional and thrilling:

Dariusz, I've been mapping the .eu gTLD and have approximately 70% of the .eu domains mapped by nameservers. (It is essentially a forensic/cryptographic reconstruction of the .eu zone because EURid will not provide access to the .eu zone file.)The buycool.com nameservers show 2939 .eu domains. Do you still need domain examples to prove that Buycool.com is engaged in bad faith registrations?

What to say after this ? It’s obvious that EURid knows about it, as they have all information and statistics about their own system.

To be or not to be a “resident” of (the) EC ?

2006-08-16T05:49:00.000-07:00

General eligibility criteria for registering the eu domain are set out in Article 4(2)(b) of Regulation (EC) No 733/2002. Please have a look at the Article 4(2)(b) iii) “… natural person resident within the Community… “

Now the question : when someone becomes a resident ? Where this term is defended ? If someone stays in UK, Germany or other UE member country for two weeks, he/she becomes automatically a resident ? Moreover, if someone at the moment of registration was not a resident ? If we follow that way the result might be interesting…

Poland introduces biometric passports

2006-07-17T12:50:00.000-07:00

A fingerprint will identify the document holder. New law will come into force in the end of August 2006. There was almost no public discussion on the draft...

Protest against new DRM's regulation in Poland

2006-06-11T11:08:00.000-07:00

More than 15.000 people (!) have signed up to date an open letter with a protest against the bill which is said to introduce a restrictive DRM regulations into Polish law. Under the heavy critique of the public opinion the Ministry of Culture withdrew some most criticized provisions (inter alia changes to the penal code) but the situation is still unclear - there is no official version of the text. What is really impressive for me that 15.000 signatures (and still counting) have been collected in a very short time (1 month). This is a proof that our society is still willing to have some changes, use Internet to create democracy and take part in decision taking. It's a singn that Internet as a collaborative platform of exchanging ideas, will bring significant changes to the democracies around the world.

IT disputes

2006-06-04T02:27:00.000-07:00

Recently I've got involved into some cumbersome IT disputes where the bone of contention is a conformity with procedures which the parties set out in the agreement between them and jointly did't obey the rules (classic :). As the Polish law and judicary is rather indigent in this area, it would be generous if the readers of this blog could indicate some cases which were decided in their countries or give some tips from their practice. Anyone ? :)

DRM debate

2006-06-03T03:26:00.000-07:00

As the date of the implementation of the Enforcement Directive is closer, a discussion about DRM’s and their influence on the culture becomes hot. The Ministry of Culture is pushing it’s bill with changes to the Copyright Act which in the opinion of the Ministry is full compliant with the Directive, but in the opinion of many institutions and NGOs is not.

Against the changes are such institutions as the Society of the Polish Librarians, the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection (fine English page) which have published their negative opinions against the bill. Many of the bloggers in the comments compare the introducing the strict DRM protection to the process of the ‘land fencing‘ which happened in the UK in the 17’th century.

The Ministry also published recently some reports about the enforcement of the copyright law in Poland (sorry, just Polish) with the outline of the future actions. What is no surprise for me these governmental documents are full of round sentences with not much precise information what and when will be done.

flash news about IP in Poland

2006-04-29T16:42:00.000-07:00

Some new laws are 'under construction' in the governmental gloomy rooms : 1) the Act against spyware 2) novel of the patent act which is necessary after the verdict of the Supreme Court which decided in 2005 that sanctions for selling the counterfeited goods cannot be applied to the distributors of such goods, but only to the first one who put the goods on the market.

Funny and scary and one time thing - just after the moment in which the verdict came into force all the bazaar sellers foliated it and were showing when the police was trying to arrest them. If you click the link you will see the satellite view of “Bazaar of the Europe” (former football stadium in Warsaw) – the place where one can buy almost everything what is illegal (exotic animals from Asia, guns, CD’s for kilos and many more ;)

IP in the Polish Bioscience

2006-04-29T16:04:00.000-07:00

Finally arrived from the second day of the event organized by CITTRU and IPKN “Intellectual Property Startegies in Bioscience”.

The most interesting thing was valuable presentation of Mr Alexander Wurzer who showed how many factors need to be considered when we think of the Intellectual Property as a tool for commercialization of the innovative products or services. Really good piece of economy, law and technology issues put in easy way. From the macro-point of view this presentation helped me to understand that the patent system shall issue only patents of the very high quality, what is necessary for proper valuation of the intangible asset behind the patent (its like a gold coins and money- have look at the article about the Copernicus-Gresham law on Wikipedia).

At the end of the day we took part in the discussion about the problems that Poland face today. We identified some of them at different levels, but the final findings were rather positive – especially due to Maciej Czarnik representing CITTRU, who stated that the first step has been made – there is an incubator in which nine new start-ups have their seats.

What was missing, in my opinion, is the problem of functioning of the legal system in Poland (intellectual infrastructure) and some mental factors, still residing in people who used to live in communism, where collaboration and sharing in order to obtain win-win situation was unknown. It’s just an observation from my talks with young scientists and businessman.

So what I would recommend ?

- better European patent system (cheaper, faster, hi-quality patents)

- better then now R&D incentives (aimed also at small players)

- building network of connections with potential investors and the pharma industry

- education efforts to make the people belive in the common vision of success

Intellectual Property Run Amok

2006-04-14T02:10:00.000-07:00

Check what Mother Jones thinks about the IP ... Intellectual Property Run Amok

Life Science Cracow Conference - summary

2006-04-11T08:36:00.000-07:00

I ve been there, gone there, got a t-shirt. Everything was organized perfectly, but... I couldn't see any investors ready to put money into polish bio-tech business. Only 5 bio-tech start-ups (or not-ready-yet start-ups) cannnot form a healthy branch of hi-tech business in Poland, however, the first investor who come here to invest some money will be treated with special honors by the local government and society. I've got better business oportunity for someone intrested in investing in Poland, namely real estate in Cracow. The prices here are getting crazy. Half a year ago the average price of one 1 sq m was around 1000 Euro , now it's 1,500 - 50 % per 6 months ! Give me the better business ! Our law office represents one of the biggest investors inthe Angel Plaza - the new, luxry residence in front of the Sheraton Hotel , just at the Vistula River-the very top location. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you are intrested in real-estate investment in Krakow.

50.000 records with personal data of beer drikers put on danger

2006-03-28T12:08:00.000-08:00

It has been reported that unprotected file with 50.000 e-mail addresses of beer drinkers was found on the server of the web agency which takes care on Internet marketing of Zywiec , one of the biggest beer producers in Poland and, in my opinion, the best one in Poland. The file was accessible via web browser so anyone could pop in and just copy 50.000 addresses of customers who enjoy beer drinking and are interested in marketing activities. Certainly, the database is worth some money. Under Polish data protection law (patterned upon Data Protection Directive) such negligence is subject to criminal sanctions ranging up even to two years of imprisonment and some administrative measures.

Average = 1 patent application / 1 million Poles

2006-03-16T10:35:00.000-08:00

It has been reported that Polish citizens submitted 40 European patent applications last year. Taking into account that our country has almost 40 millions of citizens we proudly reach level of 1 (one) patent application for 1.000.000 (one million) people. Funny, isn’t ? But I’m not joking …

Why it's so bad ? The entrepreneurs jointly say: the European patent system is too expensive for SME, especially from new EU members, and the procedure lasts too long. Thats true.

Maybe the proposal of improving European patent system announced by the European Commission will help our inventors, but I’m rather skeptical. Many of them don’t understand consultation paper – it’s available only in English and French. Responses also have to be in one of these languages so probably many voices remain unheard. Polish IT sector have already protested against that.

If you follow this link to Rzeczpospolita newspaper (non subscription needed) and click on the image at the left upper corner there are some statistics of patent activity in the PCT procedure, according to which Polish inventors applied for patents 79 times in year 2005 (comparing for example with 13.000 German applications) .

Life Science Cracow conference

2006-03-11T14:37:00.000-08:00

Conference Life Science Cracow is organized by CITTRU UJ ( Jagiellonian University Tech Transfer Office) and it's aimed at promoting Cracow as a place for establishing a business based on biotechnology. I’ve registered as a participant, hope it will be fruitful. If you feel you’d like to come, please visit CITTRU’s web page and register. What is for sure – Krakow is the best place to invest in biotechnology - there are 12 universities here including 2 renowned biotech faculties, special economical zone (tax exemptions) and new legal instruments for R&D activities (tax deductions).

Links for foreign investors

2006-02-21T08:45:00.000-08:00

Some links to the Polish central offices and institutions : 1. The Polish Information and Foreign Investment Agency

2. CITTRU - Centre of innovation, technology transfer and university development of the Jagiellonian University

3. Patent Office

Patent term extension by the Polish Patent Office

2006-02-12T23:06:00.000-08:00

The new judgement of the Central Administrative Court (CAC) ordered the Polish Patent Office (PPO) to issue positive decisions on patent term extension in relation to patents which where granted before Poland became a TRIPS member. According to the former Law on Inventions the term of protection lasted 15 years, but this term was changed in 1994 by law conforming the Law on Inventions to the TRIPS agreement to the minimum 20-years protection. The Boots Company PLC, the British patent holder, persuaded the Court to support it's motion to the PPO on patent term extention (sygn. II GPS 1/05)

Amendments to the Copyright Act

2006-01-29T23:23:00.000-08:00

Big change to the Copyright Act has been announced on a website of Ministry of Culture. It’s still a proposal, now it’s going to be discussed, firstly among governmental bodies then in public consultations.

This bill is aimed at implementation to the Polish copyright and patent law provisions of the Directive 2004/48/EC on the enforcement of intellectual property rights.

It contains a lot of changes including :

protection by provisional and precautional measures such as injunctions
new correcting measures
poorly worded and thus ineffective provisions related to cracking of computer programs

Poland introduces 2-year data retention for telecom operators.

2006-01-29T11:15:00.000-08:00

Poland has a new law introducing mandatory telephony data retention for 2 years. The Telecommunications Act has been amended after short discussion about the necessity an scope of data retention. These rapid changes are declared to be a measure of protection against terrorism , but also the well-known fact is that new Government formed by Law and Justice Party believe that telephone billings may help in politics ;-) You can find more on discussion here.

The two years period is said to be a “compromise”. The original proposal was 15 years, which was clearly against the European law.

New, amended article 165 states that :

Article 165. 1. The operator of a public telecommunications network or the Provider of

publicly available telecommunications services which processes transmission data concerning

subscribers and end users is obliged, owing to the performing by authorized bodies of national

defence and security and public safety and order related tasks and duties, to store this data for

24 months.

(..)

After this time, the transmission data is deleted or anonymized by the operator of

a public telecommunications network or the Provider of publicly available

telecommunications services which stores it.

(..)

2. The processing of transmission data necessary for charging subscriber fees and interoperator

clearings is permissible:

1) after the prior notification of the event to the subscriber or end user with regard to the

type of transmission data that is to be processed by the Provider of publicly available

telecommunications services, and with regard to the scope of this processing;

2) until the end of the period referred to in Article 108 (2) only.

3. The Provider of publicly available telecommunications services shall inform the subscriber

or end user with regard to the type of transmission data which is to be processed, as well as

with regard to the period of this processing for marketing telecommunications services or

providing value added services.

4. The Provider of a publicly available telecommunications service may process the

transmission data referred to in Paragraph 3 in the scope and period necessary for marketing

telecommunications services or providing value added services, in the event of the subscriber

or end user consenting to it.

5. Entities authorized to charge fees by the public telecommunications network operators and

Providers of publicly available telecommunications services to manage telecommunications

network traffic, perform customer support, manage the financial abuse detection system,

telecommunications services marketing or to provide value added services, are entitled to

process the transmission data under Paragraphs 1-4. These entities may process transmission

data only in the event of it being necessary to the performance of the aforementioned actions.

English translation of the 'old law' also might be helpful.

About this blawg

2005-08-11T11:51:00.000-07:00

Welcome to blog about the Polish IP Law I decided to start blogging in English to describe Polish developments in the IP law as well as to show the international context of problems that every society face today. Thus, this blog is aimed at providing fresh information about the Polish IP law in form of: - short news regarding new laws, judical decisions, etc. - links to the Polish legal resources or other recommended sites on IP In case you look for something about the above in English fell free to contact me by e-mail or Skype. I will try to help you. Best regards Darek