Contempt - Power of the court to punish contempt - whether disobedience of court order constitutes contempt of court
Over a number of years, Deckers Outdoor Corporation Inc, the present owner of the UGG Australia brand (well-known for sheepskin boots, right, although we do not guarantee that these are the genuine article) has been engaged in litigation to prevent ongoing infringement of its trade marks, copyrights, and other elements of brand identity. During this time, the Federal Court has issued a number of injunctions restraining various parties from continuing infringement. A number of those parties have flagrantly ignored the court's orders.As a result, the court has now sentenced three of the restrained parties to terms of imprisonment, in one case for three years! The penalties are for contempt of court, on the basis of disobedience of the earlier injunctions.
Although Deckers is not a patent case, we can see no reason why the same principles would not apply to a party that flagrantly disobeyed an injunction in respect of patent infringement.
Before You Go…
Thank you for reading this article to the end – I hope you enjoyed it, and found it useful. Almost every article I post here takes a few hours of my time to research and write, and I have never felt the need to ask for anything in return.
But now – for the first, and perhaps only, time – I am asking for a favour. If you are a patent attorney, examiner, or other professional who is experienced in reading and interpreting patent claims, I could really use your help with my PhD research. My project involves applying artificial intelligence to analyse patent claim scope systematically, with the goal of better understanding how different legal and regulatory choices influence the boundaries of patent protection. But I need data to train my models, and that is where you can potentially assist me. If every qualified person who reads this request could spare just a couple of hours over the next few weeks, I could gather all the data I need.
The task itself is straightforward and web-based – I am asking participants to compare pairs of patent claims and evaluate their relative scope, using an online application that I have designed and implemented over the past few months. No special knowledge is required beyond the ability to read and understand patent claims in technical fields with which you are familiar. You might even find it to be fun!
There is more information on the project website, at claimscopeproject.net. In particular, you can read:
- a detailed description of the study, its goals and benefits; and
- instructions for the use of the online claim comparison application.
Thank you for considering this request!
Mark Summerfield
1 comments:
Given the controversy surrounding the "privatisation" of the word UGG by Deckers - to my mind, an egregious case of corporate avarice - this is particularly depressing.
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