Region: Europe

The Supreme Court has held that the playing of music via TV, radio and CD players is not to be considered public performance of music, as according to practice transmission of music to less than 40 persons is not considered “public performance".

01 January 2008

The Maritime and Commercial Court has found that the rights in a piece of co-written software was held jointly by the parties in equal shares. The parties may thus jointly have claimed royalties from third parties, but not from each other without separate agreement hereon.

01 January 2008

The High Court found the publication of a prelude was a rewriting of the hymn and not exempted by the right to quotation. Further, the Court found no basis to establish that the defendant should be precluded from enforcing its copyrights through an established practice of publishing preludes without the payment of royalties.

01 January 2008

In <i>Rolls-Royce PLC and Rolls-Royce Motor Cars Ltd vs. PR Chokolade A/S</i>, the Maritime and Commercial Court found that the RR trademark has a reputation in Denmark, and further stated that even though the use of the RR trademark in Denmark is very limited – and perhaps exactly because the use of the trademark is Denmark is very limited - the trademark has become associated with prestige, luxury and quality.

01 January 2008

In <i>Creative Technology Ltd. vs. Garder A/S</i> the Supreme Court found that the design rights belongs to Creative Technology, as to lack of proof to the opposite, that the design of Garder's MP3 player is identical with the design of Creative Technology and that Garder intentionally infringed the design rights of Creative Technology as Garder in the installation guide for its MP3 player referred to the MP3 player of Creative Technology.

01 January 2008

In an infringement action against a machine manufacturer, POMI, and a machine pool, Breum, the parties agreed before the Supreme Court on the questions of validity and infringement, and the Court was consequently only to decide on the question of damages and compensation.

01 January 2008

In <i>Herstal Lampe Design A/S vs. Hagro by Hans Grove and Silvan-kæden A/S</i>, the Supreme Court found in favor of Hagro and Silvan, stating that 3 of the Herstal lamps did not have sufficient distinctiveness to enjoy protection against product imitation under the Danish Marketing Act. The remaining 2 lamps had sufficient distinctiveness, but the corresponding Hagro lamps were not considered sufficiently close to be considered illegal product imitations.

01 January 2008

In <i>LEGO Holding A/S vs. Louise Lego (previously Louise Lego Andersen)</i>, the Supreme Court found that the use of LEGO by Louise Lego was not disloyal, improper or detrimental to the LEGO trademark, and Louise Lego was therefore entitled to use the name Galleri Lego, the domain name galleri-lego.dk and use LEGO as a meta-tag and key word on the internet.

01 January 2008

In <i>Diesel Denmark ApS vs. Fabric Denmark ApS</i>, the Maritime and Commercial Court found that the use of the term “suppliers” in connection with DIESEL and the linking to diesel.com was misleading and providing the false impression that the Fabric shops were authorized DIESEL dealers. Consequently, the use of DIESEL and linking to diesel.com was considered a violation of good marketing practice, and Fabric was ordered to pay compensation and damages with DKK 25,000 (approx. EUR 3,300).

01 January 2008

The Supreme Court has held that the marketing of Fisherman vodka could be detrimental to Fisherman Friend’s lozenge, which was often marketed in connection with sports. Nortlander was ordered to cease use of the trademark Fisherman for vodka, to cease use of a number of bottle labels and to pay compensation and damages.

01 January 2008