IRC: #techbytes @ Techrights IRC Network: Sunday, January 16, 2022

-TechBytesBot/#techbytes-ipkitten.blogspot.com | It's about time to give the music producer her/his copyright due - The IPKat

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Kat readers--Gremlins seen to be preventing the author of this post, Dr. Aleksandra Sewerynik, from publishing her responses to the thoughtful Comments above. On her behalf, I am publishing them below.

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Dear Mark, Thank you for your interesting comment. Unfortunately, in Poland we don't have Disney + access yet and for now I can't watch a documentary about the Beatles. It seems to be very interesting! You very accurately captured how other authors treat music producers. I hope that can be changed gradually. I will let you know as soon as the Polish courts decide the cases described in my article.

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Dear Andy, Thank you for your comment. Each field of creative work has its own specifics and that is the reason for the differences in the way it is remunerated that you wrote about. In my opinion, the actions of a music producer cannot be compared to the actions of 'the skilled builder or craftsman who realises the building designed by the architect'. Every creator must have a technical workshop, but his contribution must also have a personal,

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creative character. This cannot be said of the builder who realizes the architect's design, because his action is purely technical. He does not add his own individual elements to the project. It is different in the case of a music producer, as I discussed it in my article

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Dear Kunal, Thank you for your interesting comment. I agree that each music genre has its own specificity and e.g., in rock music the music producer may play more technical role than in hip-hop or pop music. This does not change the fact that the case of each song must be examined separately, in the perspective of the national law definition of work and the EU directives definition of work as 'author's own intellectual creation'. The US Copyright

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Act definition is 'original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression'. In my view, the criterion of distinction and being memorable is not central to these definitions, whereas the criterion of 'personal touch' is grounded in the values underlying continental copyright law. Certainly, there are many times when the contribution of a music producer is characterized by this 'personal touch'.

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https://twitter.com/nlitenmebabe/status/1482653785977667586

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-TechBytesBot/#techbytes-@nlitenmebabe: 😁😆😉 https://t.co/NHLXdvSUEC

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-TechBytesBot/#techbytes-@iyer_venki: @schestowitz I am sure the number of 20 is grossly "understated".

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-TechBytesBot/#techbytes-@johnbarbirolli: @schestowitz 😄😄😄

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Jan 16 14:29

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Just before they were about to start their winter celebrations, probably with too much food and drink,

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counsel and EPO staff received a rather sobering announcement from President António Campinos and

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the president of the Boards of Appeal, Carl Josefsson.

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The two presidents had proposed to the EPO’s member states on December 14 that the offices of the

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Boards of Appeal (BoA) be moved back to central Munich by 2026, less than five years after they were

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relocated to the Munich suburb of Haar, some 12km from the city centre.

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The move was done in 2017 under former president Benoît Battistelli to demonstrate the independence

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of the Boards of Appeal from other parts of the EPO and to provide board staff with more modern and

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spacious facilities, according to the office.

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At the time, however, stakeholders speculated that Battistelli was trying to get his own back on the BoA,

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with which he reportedly had a difficult relationship.

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Whether or not that was the case, plenty of counsel and EPO staff members weren’t happy about the

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move. Several were particularly perturbed by the cost of the project, estimated to be around €40.7

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million ($46 million).

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More still pointed out that Haar had few hotels and restaurants, which forced visitors to stay in Munich

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and travel into the suburb, and argued that it was a much less desirable work location for EPO staff.

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Once the boards were established in their new building, some stakeholders even filed legal challenges

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over the location of oral hearings, on the basis that Haar was not in Munich, as was said to be required

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by the European Patent Convention.

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The EPO agreed a second contract for additional space in 2019 for seven years, at a cost of €4.8 million

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($5.4 million).

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If member states approve the new move, of course, the BoA’s stay in Haar won’t last the duration of that

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original contract, despite the investment already committed. If the BoA stays in the Munich suburb until

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2026, as planned, rent will have cost the office around €17 million ($19.2 million).

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The Campinos and Josefsson plan also involves relocating the boards to the Pschorr-Höfe 7 building in

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Munich, which is already owned by the EPO and thus shouldn’t generate too many additional costs.

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Some practitioners based outside of Germany also found Haar to be a troublesome location, given the

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extra travel burden and a less impressive selection of hospitality services than in the city centre.

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Others feel it doesn’t matter too much where the BoA is based. Gwilym Roberts, chair at Kilburn &

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Strode in London, says, “we just fly wherever we fly”.

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Kevin Cordina, head of patent prosecution at Simmons & Simmons in London, agrees that the location

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isn’t as bad as some have made it out to be.

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“I’m less negative about it than some people. There’s a perfectly nice guesthouse just around the corner,”

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he says.

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Lack of accountability

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Nonetheless, practitioners agree that there was little reason for the BoA to go there in the first place.

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For many, the official line that the move would ensure the independence of the BoA from the rest of the

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EPO failed to convince.

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“No one really understood the rationale,” says Cordina.

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“Just because they’re in a different building, that doesn’t affect their independence. It was just about

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appearances.

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“The result was that the BoA was moved to a new place that simply wasn’t as good as the old one,” he

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adds.

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Weibel at Siemens says the feeling among practitioners was that the move stemmed from a poor

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relationship between Batistelli and the boards.

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There was otherwise little advantage to moving to Haar, especially when there were other options.

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“We offered to find them an empty Siemens office but they decided to go to Haar,” Weibel says.

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Alessandro Cossu, senior patent consultant at Italian firm Bugnion, and a former EPO patent examiner,

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describes the relocation to Haar as “extremely unpleasant”.

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