IP in the news

Ahh, NFTs. I’m not a fan of art ownership through collectible tokens. There are just too many instances of art plagiarism. But according to Sandra Ro, CEO of the Global Blockchain Business Council, things are just getting started in the world of NFTs, and it goes far beyond art. At this year’s TNW Conference, Ro shared an insider perspective of where we are with NFTs and where we’re going.

Lesser-known songwriters ordered to pay legal costs after court rejected accusations Shape of You ripped off their song.

Ed Sheeran and his co-songwriters have been awarded more than £900,000 in legal costs after winning their high court copyright trial over the hit Shape of You earlier this year.

The European Patent Office (EPO) announced the winners of the European Inventor Award earlier today. Viewers worldwide joined the event via livestream and celebrated as inventors and teams from Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Estonia, France, Hungary, Spain, Switzerland, the UK and the US received trophies, all of whom were chosen by an independent jury comprising of leading experts in their fields. This was also the first time our young inventors were celebrated, with the inaugural Young Inventors prize.

Lines from 30 Estonian poems have been sprayed onto the streets of Tallinn as part of a cultural tour that encompasses every district of the capital. The Tallinn Poetry Trail was compiled by young poets Elisabeth Heinsalu and Reijo Roos in cooperation with the city of Tallinn.

Roos said the poems force people to stop in their tracks and pay attention.

The lines of poetry relate to specially chosen locations, and among the authors, in addition to many new creators, there are also familiar names from Maarja Kangro to Tõnu Õnnepalu, he said.  

Monkeys at the Helsinki zoo have been given access to a primate version of “Spotify and Netflix” in a new study to see how animals engage with sound.

Experts at the University of Glasgow have developed the “monkey media player” – an interactive system which lets gorillas, chimps, and orangutans access sounds and videos.

Focusing on a group of three white-faced saki monkeys at Korkeasaari Zoo in Helsinki, Finland, a small computer was played in a wood and plastic tunnel which was then set up in the animals’ cage.

2024 might be two years away, but street artists Kadri Lind and Sirla from the Estonian city of Tartu have already kicked off a series of international celebrations under the banner #Tartu2024 European Capital of Culture with their street art exhibition, “Hello Mister Police Officer”, now on display at the Neurotitan Gallery in Berlin-Mitte.

The survey, from the European Observatory, aims to shed light on the latest trends in the use of legal and illegal online sources among Europeans aged 15 to 24, and their perceptions and behaviours towards counterfeit goods.

Results are presented today as part of the Pan European Awareness campaign for the World Anti-Counterfeiting Day.