Following its review of the proposed Patents Bill, the Commerce Select Committee has recommended excluding computer programs as inventions capable of patent protection. This recommendation has received a lot of attention and has led to a range of submissions on the issue of patentability of computer programs and the potential impact of the Select Committee’s recommendation.
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Being NZ music month, and in light of some recent developments in the area of copyright and music, we thought it timely to remind businesses of their obligations in relation to playing music in public places.
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Social networking technology is increasingly becoming part of New Zealanders’ lives, fuelling concerns about the implications such technology is having on user privacy on the internet. Social networking applications that have been developed for mobile phones have added to this list of concerns. As social networking is being integrated across a number of platforms, it is becoming more difficult for users to have complete control over their personal information despite their best efforts via privacy settings.
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A recent Auckland District Court decision, Commerce Commission v TMG Asia Pacific Pty Ltd, has highlighted the need for adequate disclosure of material Terms and Conditions in advertising.
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The issue of how New Zealand will deal with unauthorized sharing of copyright material via the internet has taken another interesting turn. Current enforcement measures under the Copyright Act 1994 are considered ineffective. Section 92A of the Act was intended to provide a way to address this problem by forcing ISPs to have a policy providing for account termination, but was met with a lot of public concern. Readers may recall that at the time of our last article of 15 July 2009 Government were considering amending the section. On Tuesday, Minister of Commerce Simon Power introduced the Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Bill (the Bill) to Parliament which if passed will repeal s92A in favour of a new set of enforcement measures.
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