The introduction of Law 4481/2017 into the Greek legislation aimed to regulate the collective management of IP and relative rights, thus amending the EU Collective Rights Management Directive. (1) Specifically, in its regulation of the public performance of musical works incorporated in legitimately released sound carriers, stores, and undertakings, article 24 of Law 4481/2017 introduced a reporting obligation for users.

What is the reporting obligation?

The reporting obligation entails the delivery of lists of works used by the user to the collective management organisations (CMOs) representing the rights of the specific works. This derives not only from the teleological interpretation of article 24 of Law 4481/2017 (article 17 of the EU Collective Rights Management Directive) but also from the specific grammatical wording of the provision of article 24 itself: Read more…

Foreign entities wishing to register an Australian trademark should be aware that Australia is a ‘first-to-use’ jurisdiction. This means that the owner of a trademark is the first user of that trademark.

First to File

In some jurisdictions, the entity that is the first to file an application to register a particular trademark is the owner of that trademark. In a first to file jurisdictions the applicant will generally be the owner of the trademark regardless of whether the applicant has used the trademark prior to making an application for registration, and regardless of whether another entity (that has not previously applied to register the trademark) is already using it.

Arguably, a first-to-file system is easier to manage. Generally, in a first-to-file country, the only step the relevant IP Office needs to take to establish ownership of a trademark is to determine who was the first to file an application to register the relevant trademark. Read more…