Kitz Forum
Announcements => News Articles => Topic started by: Bowdon on June 13, 2018, 12:48:51 PM
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https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2018/06/broadband-isps-win-uk-court-battle-over-website-blocking-costs.html (https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2018/06/broadband-isps-win-uk-court-battle-over-website-blocking-costs.html)
BT and three other broadband and mobile operators have today won their battle in the Supreme Court with Cartier, which challenged whether it was right for them to suffer the costs of implementing blocks against websites that were found to be selling counterfeit goods (i.e. abuse of Trade Mark).
Until recently ISPs like BT, EE, Virgin Media, Sky Broadband and TalkTalk could only be forced, via a court order, to block websites if they were found to facilitate internet copyright infringement (piracy) under Section 97A of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act. But in 2014 the High Court extended this to include sites that sell counterfeit goods and thus abuse company trademarks (logos).
The providers initially appealed this decision, not least by stating that Cartier and Montblanc (they were responsible for the original case) had provided “no evidence” that their networks were being abused to infringe Trade Marks and that the UK Trade Mark Act did not include a provision for website blocking. Not to mention the unlikely risk that such a law could be applied in an overzealous way (e.g. eBay being blocked due to a dodgy seller).