In one of 2020's first judgments from the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court, and one which is likely to be talked about for most of the year, His Honour Judge Hacon has found that a piece of fabric cannot be protected by copyright as a graphic work but can be protected by copyright as a work of artistic craftsmanship. This is an interesting development in UK copyright law which gives a relatively narrow interpretation of "graphic work", a much wider interpretation of "work of artistic craftsmanship" than we have seen previously, and a very wide interpretation of "public". It is also the first UK decision which begins to consider the implications of the CJEU ruling in Cofemel.
Simon Clark, Sara Sefton and Marc Linsner discuss this further in the European Intellectual Property Review.
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This material was first published by Thomson Reuters, trading as Sweet & Maxwell, 5 Canada Square, Canary Wharf, London, E14 5AQ, in European Intellectual Property Review, Volume 42, Issue 9, 2020 and is reproduced by agreement with the publishers.
Originally published 10.11.2020
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