Articles
The Fine Line between Copyright Infringement or Artistic Creativity
Sharon Givoni Consulting Arts and design, Copyright
This article looks at what happened when the owners of the Barbie doll (Mattel) took a photographer to court over the “creative” use of Barbie in a bold and daring set of photographers featuring Barbies cooking in a casserole dish and in a fondue pot. The fair use defence under copyright law came into play […]
The Case for Binding Contracts
Sharon Givoni Consulting Arts and design, Copyright
Read how the owner of a holiday resort thought that they could use the photographer’s commercial images of the report without paying him. The court punished them even more because they had ignored the letters from the photographer asking for payment. Lucky for the photographer, he had a contract with them that set out what […]
Choc shock as Cadbury claims ownership of colour purple
Sharon Givoni Consulting Trade marks
Brands are the glue between consumers and products. This is particularly so with Cadbury’s purple. You can be rushing down the confectionary aisle of a supermarket and know exactly where to stop for Cadbury – it’s the purple section, particularly if you are looking for block chocolate. It took Cadbury almost a decade to get […]
The Case of the Branded Banana – A Red Hot Tip for Marketing your Product
Sharon Givoni Consulting Food Law, Trade marks
Many people don’t know that the red wax tip of specially grown bananas is actually a registered trade mark owned by two Queensland based farmers. No one else can use it but them. One of the things that really help you to get a trade mark registration is to market the product by reference to […]