The Irish Patents Office has recently published its Annual Report for 2014 setting out trends, objectivities, activities throughout 2014 and what can be expected in 2015. The Annual Report sets out how the Irish Patent Office has discharged of its statutory functions under the Patents Act 1992 (as amended), the Trade Marks Acts 1996 (as amended), the Industrial Designs Act 2001 and the various statutory rules and regulations made under these Acts. A summary of the key findings are set out below.Continue Reading Irish Patents Office Annual Report 2014

The High Court, in In the Matter for Mount Carmel Medical Group (South Dublin) Ltd (In Liquidation) [2015] IEHC 450 considered the issue of who is a data controller under data protection law in respect of data held by a company in liquidation. 

The Court refused to grant the declarations sought by the liquidators of Mount Carmel Hospital, that the statutory role of data controller was transferred to St. James Hospital (SJH) along with transfer of the patient’s records to SJH, and that the liquidators could have access to the patient data insofar as necessary for the purposes of the liquidation. 

Keane J. held that there was "a clear danger of overlapping and unworkable jurisdictions" if he granted the declarations sought, as it would deprive data subjects of any meaningful right in the future to complain to the Data Protection Commissioner (the DPC) about any data processing activities carried out by Mount Carmel Hospital. 

The decision shows that in the event of a dispute arising as to who is the data controller of records under a contract,  the courts will give limited weight to any contractual provisions designing a particular party as data controller, and will instead focus on who, in fact, exercises control over the personal data concerned.  Continue Reading Court refuses to grant declaration as to identity of the data controller

Last month the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources published the Government’s National Cyber Security Strategy 2015-2017 (the Strategy).

In 2013 the World Economic Forum classified cyber related threats as one of the highest of all global risks from the perspective of impact and likelihood. This assessment was echoed at a national level in the Government’s 2014 National Risk Assessment. The development and proliferation of Information and Communications technology (ICT) has transformed the way in which society operates. There are few sectors of both society and the economy which do not rely on some form of ICT for their continued operation. This increased dependence has led to increased risk with threats such as hacking, cyber-crime, hacktivism, cyber espionage, software failures and even human error posing a direct threat not only to the daily lives of Irish citizens but also to the economy and the State. Continue Reading Government publishes National Cyber Security Strategy

The High Court has refused an application by the Irish Times for injunctions restraining the Times of London from using the words "The Times Irish Edition" in its forthcoming digital Irish edition of the newspaper. The new digital publication will be sold as a part of a subscription package with the Sunday Times and will be solely available digitally. The Irish Times had sought an injunction preventing Times Newspapers Limited (TNL) from using the "The Times Irish Edition" or any other title which may be confusingly similar to The Irish Times. TNL denied that the phrase would create any confusion due to the co-existence of the two publications in Ireland for 150 years as well as the fact that it was common knowledge that they intended to launch an Irish edition. Continue Reading High Court refuses injunction over Irish edition of the UK Times

The Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights has upheld its first instance decision in Delfi A.S. v Estonia (16 June 2015). It held that an online news portal operator (Delfi) was responsible for comments posted about an online article by one of its readers (see our legal update on the first instance decision here).Continue Reading ECHR upholds liability of online news service for its readers’ defamatory comments