Going to GRUND

Autumn: the season of mists,
mellow fruitfulness ... and a new
crop of CJEU references

Case C-458/13 GRUND E.A is yet another reference to the Court of Justice of the European Union that has embarrassingly slipped through this blogger's radar while he was busy pursuing other matters. Still, it's never to late to give it an airing. According to the UK Intellectual Property Office this is a request for a preliminary ruling [from where? GRUND does sound rather German, but German is an official language of more than one EU Member State ...] in a case concerning an adaptor [or should that be 'adapter'? No, both are correct, in Oxford at any rate] designed to circumvent copyright protection on a handheld video game console. The question referred is:

"Does Article 12(a) of Directive 2001/29 on the harmonisation of certain aspect of copyright and related rights in the information society ... preclude the application of a domestic provision which transposes Article 6(2) of the Directive into national law if the technological measure in question protects not only works or other subject matter, but also computer programs?"

If any reader knows a bit about the background, this blog will be delighted to hear about it too.

 If you would like to comment on this case, and tell the UK government what if anything they should be thinking about these questions, please email policy@ipo.gov.uk by 18 October 2013.