Author: Eoin

Dr Eoin O'Dell is a Fellow and Associate Professor of Law at Trinity College Dublin.

Copyright reform gets a welcome Christmas present

| 2 Comments
| Copyright, CRC12 / CRC13

Harp and copyrightModernising Copyright, the Report of the Copyright Review Committee [CRC], was published in October 2013. It contained an extensive draft Copyright and Related Rights (Innovation) (Amendment) Bill 2013 to implement its recommendations. Senator Seán Barrett has now introduced a Private Member’s Bill into the Seanad to enact that draft Bill. Entitled the Copyright and Related Rights (Innovation) (Amendment) Bill 2015, leave to introduce it was granted on Wednesday, 2 December 2015; and the Bill itself was published this morning.

The text is the same as that of the CRC’s draft Bill, except in four respects. …

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Reform of defamation – 1 – court reports

| 3 Comments
| 2016-17 Reform, Defamation, Open Justice

Criminal Courts of Justice, DublinThe Attorney General, Máire Whelan, yesterday called for a debate on the question of whether reports of court proceedings should be actionable in defamation only if there is proof of malice (Irish Independent | Irish Times | RTE). She made her call as part of her comments marking the retirement of the outgoing President of the High Court, Mr Justice Nicholas Kearns. Rather predictably, an Irish Independent editorial praised her “timely and insightful address” and her “welcome and refreshing” observations, bemoaned “telephone number” legal fees and “massively punitive” damages awards, and argued that a “review of defamation laws is long overdue”.

A long-running review of defamation was concluded by the Defamation Act, 2009 (also here), which came into force on 1 January 2010. Section 5 (also here) of the Act provides

(1) The Minister shall, not later than 5 years after the passing of this Act, commence a review of its operation.

(2) A review under subsection (1) shall be completed not later than one year after its commencement.

According to the definitions in section 2 (also here), the Minister in question is the Minister for Justice and Equality. Although the deadline in section 5 has passed, a review does not yet seem to have been commenced.…

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Why should legal academics not be judges?

| 5 Comments
| Irish Law, Judicial Appointments

Academic Mortar Board via https://pixabay.com/en/graduation-cap-hat-achievement-309661/ and Judicial Wig via https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Court_dress#/media/File:Legal_wigs_today.jpgWhy should legal academics not be eligible to apply for appointment to be bench, especially at appellate level? The question came up during a debate on the Courts Bill 2015 in the Seanad last Friday. The Bill is a short one, designed to increase the number of judges of the High Court by two. But amendments put down by Senator Seán Barrett at Committee Stage were designed to make legal academics eligible for appointment as judges of all courts on the same bases as practising barristers and solicitors (full disclosure, I drafted the text of the amendments for him). In reply, Minister of State at the Department of Justice and Equality, Aodhán Ó Ríordáin TD said:

The Government is conducting a wide-ranging review of all matters concerned with judicial appointments that will allow the necessary full assessment of all aspects of the issue. It is committed to bringing forward legislative reforms in this area and a judicial appointments Bill which is being prepared is the subject of a commitment in the agreed programme for Government. The subject of the amendments, that is, the eligibility of legal academics for judicial appointment, is one of a wide range of matters included within the scope of the review I have mentioned.

…

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The reform of French Contract Law

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| Comparative Law, Contract

codecivil1804coversmall_2I. INTRODUCTION
At lunchtime today, Alexis Downe, lecturer in Toulouse University 1 Capitole and visiting lecturer here in Trinity, gave a staff seminar on “The reform of French Contract Law: a brief overview”. The fundamentals of French private law in general, and of the Law of Contract in particular, are largely unchanged in the Code civil (first edition cover pictured left) since it was adopted in 1804. Nevertheless, there have been significant social changes, from the nineteenth century’s industrial revolution, to the twentieth century’s two world wars, to the twenty-first century’s information age. In many ways, the current process of reform is intended to allow French contract law to catch up with these and other developments. In this post, I provide some background to the current process of reform of French contract law, and then discuss Alexis’s paper.

II. BACKGROUND
Earlier this year, I wrote a post on this blog about French reform of Contract Law in comparative context, constructed around Bénédicte Fauvarque-Cosson‘s article on “The French Contract Law Reform in a European Context” (2014) ELTE Law Journal 59. To the story told in that post should be added the English translation (pdf) (by John Cartwright and Simon Whittaker) of the Catala Avant-projet (pdf) and academic discussions of those drafts in England and France.…

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The Legal Services Regulation Bill has – eventually! – passed all stages in the Seanad

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| Legal Services Regulation

Advert for CEO of LSRAPictured left is a thumbnail of a photograph of an advertisment that appeared in last Friday’s Irish Times (click through for the full size photograph, where the advertisment is more readable; it’s not online anywhere I can find). It is an advance announcement of the upcoming vacancy for Chief Executive Officer of the Legal Services Regulation Authority (LSRA). I suspect that, when the advertisment was placed, it was expected that the Report and Final stages of the Legal Services Regulation Bill, 2011 would have been taken in the Seanad last Thursday. However, given the large volume of government amendments to the Bill, the Committee stage spilled over until Thursday, and the marathon Report stage continued through Tuesday and yesterday, when the Final stage was taken. After all the squabbles, all the controversy, and all the amendments, all that is required now is the signature of the President. The advertisement says that, once the Bill is enacted, it is intended to proceed quickly to appoint a Chief Executive and get the LSRA up and running. Presumably, the CEO and other vacancies will appear in due course on the Public Jobs website.

The LRSA will consist of 11 members, with expertise in relation to the provision of legal services; legal education and legal training; competition law and policy; the maintenance of standards in professions regulated by a statutory body; dealing with complaints against members of professions regulated by a statutory body; business and commercial matters; the needs of consumers of legal services.…

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The IPO takes down a scammer; and opens the door to restitution claims by rightsowners

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| Intellectual property, Restitution

Based on https://pixabay.com/en/road-sign-attention-note-scam-464653/A company calling itself the Intellectual Property Agency Ltd (IPAL) wrote to wrote to holders of patents and trademarks, reminding them that the right required renewal at the UK’s Intellectual Property Office (the IPO), and requesting a fee for the renewal which was considerably greater than the IPO’s.

It’s a pretty common scam. There are warnings against it not only on the website of the IPO, but also on the websites of Irish Patents Office, WIPO, the EU’s OHIM, and the US PTO. Of course, interposing between the IPO and rightsowners, and charging the rightsowners exorbitant fees to renew their patents and trademarks with the IPO, is certainly sharp practice, but it is not necessarily unlawful.

However, the line can be crossed. For example, in the US a criminal case has recently been commenced against the alleged principal in a mass mailing scam targeting holders of US trademarks. Again, in the UK, IPAL went a lot further than many of these scams, misrepresenting that it was the IPO (or, at the very least, officially connected with it). In the Comptroller-General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks v Intellectual Property Agency Ltd [2015] EWHC 3256 (IPEC) (10 November 2015) (noted here on IPKat), HHJ Hacon held that IPAL had passed itself off as the IPO (the first plaintiff), and that IPAL had infringed trademarks in the IPO held by the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (the second plaintiff).…

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Access to justice when legal costs are high – 2 updates

| 1 Comment
| Irish Law, Legal Services Regulation

Solicitors Regulatory Authority regulation timelineHard on the heels of my post on access to justice when legal costs are high come two updates.

First, in the UK, the Solicitors Regulatory Authority (SRA) has published a position paper, proposing a new simplified model for principles-based regulation of the solicitors’ profession. A timeline of reform of that profession over the last decade is set out in the image at the top left; click on it (or here) for a bigger version.

Second, the Seanad yesterday continued – and came close to completing – its consideration of the Legal Services Regulation Bill, 2011. Given the controversy that has attended earlier stages of this Bill, the lack of fanfare yesterday and today is remarkable. Perhaps this is the way reform now begins, not with a bang but with a whimper.…

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Access to justice when legal costs are high

| 4 Comments
| Irish Law, Legal Services Regulation, Open Justice

Who's who in court.gifI have had occasion on this blog to repeat the old adage that justice is open to all – like the Ritz Hotel. I was reminded of it by two headlines I saw this morning.

The first is from today’s Irish Times:

Judge says courts ‘fearfully expensive’ and ‘accessible to few’

The court system is “fearfully expensive”, “alien” and “truly accessible to increasingly few”, a High Court Judge has said. The courts were a forum that should be engaged only as “a last resort”, Mr Justice Max Barrett added. … “Almost a hundred years after the opening salvos that led to the creation of our present Republic, we have now an expensive court system that remains alien to many and truly accessible to increasingly few.”

Update: Barrett J made these remarks in Traynor v Guinness UDV Ireland [2015] IEHC 732 (24 November 2015) [1], permitting the case to proceed, but recommending that the parties resolve the matter “collaboratively if possible, by mediation if not, by expert decision if necessary and, only as a very last resort, in this fearfully expensive forum” (id).

The second is from the Brief (a daily email newsletter from the Times, which will be made available later in the week here):

We can’t afford lawyers, says public

Lawyers and legal advice are well beyond the budgets of ordinary people, a survey published this week has found.

…

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