Monday Miscellany: Saisies-Contrefaçon, Border Measures, Design Crime, and Noninfringing Alternatives

1.  Pierre Langlais and Deborah Dayan have published a paper titled Saisie-Contrefaçon:  points de vigilance -- Panorama de Jurisprudence (juin 2013 - septembre 2014) in the November 2014 issue of Propriété Industrielle at pages 8-13.  The abstract reads as follows (my translation from the French):

The saisie-contrefaçon is a fundamental method of proof in regard to infringement.  Because of its extraordinary character, the saisie-contrefaçon procedure is subject to strict rules, and decisions calling saisies into question are myriad.  2013 and 2014 have been richer still in teachings in this regard.  The retrospective table below has for its objective the presentation of a panorama of cases in order to call to the attention of litigants the different risks tied to the saisie-contrefaçon. 

2.  In the October issue of GRUR (pp. 921-24), Thomas Kühnen published  the second installement of his Die Haftung wegen unberechtigter oder zu Unrecht unterbliebener Grenzbeschlagnahme nach der VO (EU) Nr. 608/2013 ("Liability for unauthorized or unenforced border measures under Regulation (EU) No. 608/2013).  For my post on Part 1, see here.  Here is the abstract:

Border measures are directed against goods that are suspected of infringing an intellectual property right.  Subsequently it may turn out that there actually was no infringement, in which case the commercial consequences for the victim of the unauthorized seizure can be grave.  On the other hand, the IP owner also can suffer injury to its property, if the Customs Authorities do not take objectively reasonable measures and thus allow, to the detriment of the IP owner, competition from infringing products.  This essay attempts the first systematic analysis of the liability problem.  In connection with Part 1 (GRUR 2014, 811), which addresses the liability of Customs Authorities, Part 2 follows up with the liability of movants and of persons entitled to dispose of the property. 

3.      David Musker has published Design crime: back to the future or forwards to the past?, in 9 Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice No. 12, pp. 976-84 (2014).  Here is a link to the paper, and here is the abstract:

The Intellectual Property Act 2014 has controversially created new criminal offences, and magistrates will therefore find themselves dealing with design infringements.  This is not, however, the first time:  the magistrates' courts also had jurisdiction over registered design piracy between 1842 and 1883, and many of the concerns recently raised during passage of the Intellectual Property Act were played out before them.  This article examines some of the cases as reported through the eyes of the Victorian press.

Readers may recall that Professor Sarah Burstein published a guest post here on the new UK design crime law. 

4.  Finally, over at Sufficient Description Norman Siebrasse recently published two very good posts (here and here) relating to the relevance to patent damages of noninfringing alternatives, in the context of a critique of the recent Canadian case of Eli Lilly v. Apotex.  (I blogged about the case recently here.)  He also has a (more favorable) post on the Canadian court's handling of the compound interest issue here.