Category Archives: Intellectual property

Hornby sells slot car racing brand Scalextric for £20m

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Purbeck Capital Partners seals deal for business and property rights of toy with model railway maker

For almost six decades Hornby has watched Scalextric drive revenues for its hobby business but on Friday the company said it had decided to sell the famous slot car racing brand for £20m to a little known buyer.

The model railway company, which also sells toy planes and cars under the Airfix and Corgi brands, has sold the Scalextric business and intellectual property rights to Purbeck Capital Partners.

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Hornby sells slot car racing brand Scalextric for £20m

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Purbeck Capital Partners seals deal for business and property rights of toy with model railway maker

For almost six decades Hornby has watched Scalextric drive revenues for its hobby business but on Friday the company said it had decided to sell the famous slot car racing brand for £20m to a little known buyer.

The model railway company, which also sells toy planes and cars under the Airfix and Corgi brands, has sold the Scalextric business and intellectual property rights to Purbeck Capital Partners.

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Baby Shark: South Korean court rejects US composer’s claim song was plagiarised

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Ruling upheld that there was insufficient evidence of copyright infringement on song that is YouTube’s most viewed video

South Korea’s supreme court has rejected a US composer’s allegation that the producers of the catchy children’s song Baby Shark plagiarised his work, ending a six-year-long legal battle.

The court upheld two lower court verdicts in favour of Pinkfong, the South Korean company behind the tune with the famous “doo doo doo doo doo doo” refrain.

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Ministers offer concessions on AI and copyright to avoid fifth Lords defeat

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Exclusive: Data bill faces being shelved amid standoff over plans to allow AI firms to use copyrighted content

Defiant peers have delivered an ultimatum to offer artists copyright protection against artificial intelligence or risk losing a key piece of legislation.

The government suffered a fifth defeat in the House of Lords over controversial plans to allow the AI companies to train their models using copyrighted material.

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Paul McCartney and Dua Lipa among artists urging Starmer to rethink AI copyright plans

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Hundreds of leading figures from UK creative industries urge prime minister not to ‘give our work away’

Hundreds of leading figures and organisations in the UK’s creative industries, including Coldplay, Paul McCartney, Dua Lipa, Ian McKellen and the Royal Shakespeare Company, have urged the prime minister to protect artists’ copyright and not “give our work away” at the behest of big tech.

In an open letter to Keir Starmer, a host of major artists claim creatives’ livelihoods are under threat as wrangling continues over a government plan to let artificial intelligence companies use copyright-protected work without permission.

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Sydney woman who sold a cartoon cat T-shirt told to pay US$100,000 in Grumpy Cat copyright case

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Alda Curtis, who earned US$1 for the t-shirt she sold on RedBubble, had US$600 removed from her PayPal account without explanation

Alda Curtis, a 63-year-old counselling student from Sydney, set up a Redbubble store as a hobby, including selling a T-shirt featuring an unhappy cat cartoon.

After years of running the store, a single sale of that T-shirt resulted in a US$100,000 default judgment against her for infringing on the trademark of Grumpy Cat late last year. Then Curtis noticed nearly US$600 had been taken from her PayPal account.

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US authors’ copyright lawsuits against OpenAI and Microsoft combined in New York with newspaper actions

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California cases over AI trainers’ use of work by writers including Ta-Nehisi Coates and Michael Chabon transferred to consolidate with New York suits from John Grisham and Jonathan Franzen and more

Twelve US copyright cases against OpenAI and Microsoft have been consolidated in New York, despite most of the authors and news outlets suing the companies being opposed to centralisation.

A transfer order made by the US judicial panel on multidistrict litigation on Thursday said that centralisation will “allow a single judge to coordinate discovery, streamline pretrial proceedings, and eliminate inconsistent rulings”.

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UK copyright law consultation ‘fixed’ in favour of AI firms, peer says

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Exclusive: Beeban Kidron says plans will lead to ‘wholesale’ transfer of wealth from creative industries to tech sector

A consultation on changes to UK copyright law is “fixed” in favour of artificial intelligence companies and will lead to a “wholesale” transfer of wealth from the creative industries to the tech sector, according to a crossbench peer campaigning against the mooted overhauls.

Beeban Kidron said the government was undermining its own growth agenda with proposals to let AI companies train their algorithms on creative works under a new copyright exemption.

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Big Mac v Supermac’s: McDonald’s loses EU trademark fight

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Ruling by European court of justice ends 17-year legal tussle between Irish chain and global rival

The small Irish takeaway chain Supermac’s has won a David v Goliath court battle with McDonald’s over the use of the Big Mac trademark, paving the way for it to open outlets across Europe.

The ruling also means the US-founded fast food multinational has lost the right to use the name “Big Mac” in the EU in relation to chicken burgers.

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Pandabuy: police raid ‘20 football stadiums’ worth of alleged fake goods warehouses

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Arrests as Chinese authorities working with UK police and international trademark agencies seize millions of parcels bound for customers worldwide

Chinese authorities have targeted a major online sales platform accused of supplying counterfeit goods, raiding warehouses holding millions of packages destined for overseas buyers.

Earlier this month police raided the Hangzhou office and several warehouses of Pandabuy after reported legal action by 16 brands over copyright infringement. More than 200 public security branch officers, 50 private sector investigators and local police were involved, according to reports.

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Collection of unreleased Marvin Gaye songs found in Belgium

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Questions surround ownership of demo tapes reportedly left by soul artist as a thank-you to his Ostend hosts

A collection of cassette tapes containing a host of unreleased Marvin Gaye songs has been found in the Belgian city of Ostend.

It has potentially lain hidden in Belgium for over 40 years, according to the BBC.

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Chinese dancing frog goes viral doing the worm

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‘Frog seller’ trend sparks debate on intellectual property amid concerns over copyright infringement

An anthropomorphised frog has joined celebrity live-streamers and social media commentators among China’s ranks of influencers, as a trend that began with street sellers in Chinese cities takes on a new life online – and raised questions over who, if anyone, owns the intellectual property rights to a dancing amphibian.

Alternatively known as a “frog seller” or “frog influencer”, the meme involves a person in a frog suit with a blue neckerchief selling frog-themed products such as balloons and toys.

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Adidas asks US to bar Black Lives Matter from using three stripes in trademark

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The sportswear company claims the BLM Global Network Foundation’s yellow-stripe design would be confused with its three-stripe logo

Sneaker giant Adidas AG has asked the US trademark office to reject an application for a Black Lives Matter trademark featuring three parallel stripes, arguing it could mislead the public.

Adidas told the office in a Monday filing that Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation Inc’s yellow-stripe design would create confusion with its own famous three-stripe mark. It sought to block the group’s application to use the design on goods that the German sportswear maker also sells, such as shirts, hats and bags.

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Sardinian winemaker denies his two oxen logo is Red Bull copy

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Mattia Muggittu says he feels like David v Goliath as energy drink firm disputes branding on his first bottles

A small wine producer in Sardinia accused by the maker of the energy drink Red Bull of copying its logo has said he feels as if he is in a David and Goliath battle against the Austrian company.

Mattia Muggittu, the owner of Muggittu di Mamoiada, had just produced his first bottle of wine, which features two traditional Sardinian oxen tied together on its label, when he received a legal notice from Red Bull claiming the image bore similarities to the one on its energy drink depicting two bulls charging at each other inside a golden sun.

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Demand for Japanese manga bucks Australia’s downward piracy trend

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With songs and movies readily available on streaming services, illegal downloads have moved to less-available media

A growing demand for pirated Japanese manga in Australia has coincided with a decline in the piracy of TV shows, movies and music over the last five years.

Last month, the attorney general’s department released a review of Australia’s copyright enforcement, which included an analysis of trends in online copyright infringement.

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50 Chinese students leave UK in three years after spy chiefs’ warning

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MI5 chief says Chinese communist party targeting intellectual property across west

Fifty Chinese students have left the UK in the past three years after Britain tightened its procedures to prevent the theft of sensitive academic research, the head of MI5 said in a speech about the espionage threat posed by Beijing.

Ken McCallum, the director general of the spy agency, also said that MI5 had “more than doubled” its effort against Chinese activity over the same timeframe, as part of an unprecedented joint warning with his counterpart at the FBI.

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Mariah Carey being sued for $20m over All I Want for Christmas Is You

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Songwriter Andy Stone claims he co-wrote song with the same name and did not give permission for it to be used

Mariah Carey is being sued for $20m (£16m) for alleged copyright infringement over her festive megahit All I Want for Christmas Is You – nearly three decades after it was released.

Since it came out in 1994, the song, which features on her album Merry Christmas, has become a global classic and a firm favourite in the pop Christmas canon.

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Eric Clapton to waive legal costs against woman who attempted to sell single bootlegged CD

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The artist’s management have issued a clarifying statement after the singer attracted criticism over the David v Goliath win

Eric Clapton has waived the legal costs that a German court ordered a 55-year-old woman to pay, over a single CD containing a bootleg copy of a 1980s concert she attempted to sell.

The musician’s management has also issued a clarifying statement in response to widespread social media criticism over Clapton’s decision to take legal action in the first place, saying Clapton was not involved in the specifics of the case and she “is not the type of person Eric Clapton, or his record company, wish to target”.

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Will everyone in the world have access to a Covid vaccine? – video explainer

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The hunt for a coronavirus vaccine is showing promise but it is premature to say the end of the pandemic is nigh. Several rich countries have signed a 'frenzy of deals' that could prevent many poor nations from getting access to immunisation until at least 2024. Also, many drug firms are potentially refusing to waive patents and other intellectual property rights in order to secure exclusive rights to any cure.

Michael Safi, the Guardian's international correspondent, explains why 'vaccine nationalisation' could scupper global efforts to kill the virus and examines what is being done to tackle the issue

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Katy Perry wins appeal in $2.8m plagiarism case

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Judge rules against jury verdict in case over song Dark Horse, which had previously been found in favour of rapper Marcus Gray

Katy Perry has won an appeal in a copyright case involving damages of $2.8m (£2.3m).

In July 2014, Perry was accused of plagiarising the song Joyful Noise by a Christian rapper named Marcus Gray (AKA Flame), for her US No 1 hit Dark Horse, which was the second biggest-selling song worldwide that year. The songwriters sued, with Perry and her team defending themselves by saying they had never heard Joyful Noise.

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