Australian Technology and IP Business

The Digital Communications Age

On Thursdsay 6 March in Brisbane, Cliff Rosenberg, Digital media entrepreneur and former Managing Director of Yahoo! Australia and NZ will be speaking about the digital communications age at an AICC lunch.

Cliff Rosenberg has a strategic consultancy background in South Africa. With leading management roles in iTouch and Vodafone early this decade, Cliff went on to become Managing Director of Yahoo! In Australia/NZ from 2003-2006. After leaving Yahoo!, Cliff was MD and Partner in digital strategy agency, Clear Light Digital – which was bought out by ASX listed Bluefreeway Group. Still Chairing Clear Light Digital, Cliff is an active Venture Capitalist in the ‘new media’ space. Cliff is also founder of the Australian Interactive Advertising Bureau and was Chairman of the Mobile Advertising Awards in 2006 and 2007.

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Does copyright in a label prevent importation?

In The Polo/Lauren Company L.P. v Ziliani Holdings Pty Ltd [2008] FCA 49, the Australian copyright owner of the Palph Laren "polo player" symbol failed in its action under s 37 of the Copyright Act in the Federal Court to prevent clothing bearing its embroidered logo being imported from USA into Australia.

The symbol was lawfully embroidered overseas into the external surface of an article of clothing, but the  person entitled to the copyright here did not consent to its importation.

The defendants succesfully contended that the polo player logo embroidered on each article amounted to a non-infringing accessory within the meaning of the exception to infringement in section 44C of the Copyright Act, because it is a ‘label’ embroidered onto an article of clothing.

UPDATE: December 2008: Appeal dismissed