WIPO Webinar for Judges on September 1, 2020: Tailoring Injunctions to Address IP Infringement in the Digital Environment
August 11, 2020
Of the many ways in which intellectual property protection requires the law to keep pace with technological developments, providing effective remedies to online IP infringements presents particularly fast-moving challenges, not least due to the ease, volume and anonymity of infringement that is enabled by the digital environment.
As the practice of courts in applying remedies to the digital context has evolved, website-blocking injunctions have become a powerful tool in addressing infringement in the online environment, where direct enforcement is often difficult and costly. Instead, in awarding blocking injunctions against online intermediaries, courts have been able to provide redress by ordering removal of infringing content (by internet hosting providers) or disabling of access to content (by internet access providers).
However, the effectiveness of traditional website-blocking injunctions is limited by the fact that online infringement transcends territorial borders, and that it is technically easy and quick to circumvent access blocks and to re-distribute infringing materials (for example through mirror sites). How have courts around the world tailored the application of injunctions to adapt to this reality and to provide timely, effective and balanced recourse?
Join Justice Paolo Catallozzi of the Supreme Court of Italy, Justice George R. Locke of the Federal Court of Appeal of Canada, and Deputy Chief Justice Thammanoon Phitayaporn of the Central Intellectual Property and International Trade Court of Thailand for a discussion of recent approaches to website-blocking to enforce copyright, trademarks and trade secrets.
Supreme Court of Italy, Rome, Italy
Federal Court of Appeal, Ottawa, Canada
Central Intellectual Property and International Trade Court, Bangkok, Thailand
The webinar will cover the legal and practical issues arising in recent application of injunctions to the digital environment, including:
- Forms of “dynamic”, “live” or “fast” injunctions that extend beyond a specific infringing act, with a view to preventing future infringement;
- Requirements for, and scope of, injunctions;
- Application to different defendants;
- Questions of extra-territorial effect; and
- How courts achieve proportionality, and a fair balance between IP rights and other fundamental rights in awarding injunctions.
The webinar will be conducted in English on September 1, 2020 (14.00–15.15 CEST), with simultaneous interpretation provided in Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian and Spanish. Participation is open only to judges and members of quasi-judicial bodies that are active in adjudicating intellectual property disputes.
Please register in order to participate in the webinar. Registration will close at 12.00 p.m. on August 31 (CEST).
For any questions, contact the WIPO Judicial Institute.