Shaun Creighton

The golden decade of hosting major events in Australia commenced in 2022. Between 2022 and 2032, Australia will host major sporting events of Major Championship, World Cup or World Championship status in sports ranging from cricket, football and rugby union, to road cycling and cross country running.

The Attorney General has published his long awaited review of the Australian Privacy Act 1988.

A general lack of clarity has led to poor levels of compliance, and many Australian businesses have got used to treating customer information as an asset rather than a liability”. Moulis Legal’s special counsel, Graeme Fearon, provides an insight into the most interesting current trends on data breaches.

The World Anti-Doping Code (WADA Code) has traditionally applied the legal principle of strict liability to anti-doping rule violations. Sanctioning of athletes by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) may take into account factors which could be considered unintentional doping.

Sporting events need officials to umpire/referee the competition. Inevitably, not everyone will agree with all decisions made by these officials. From professional football codes to the local sporting field, there are ‘controversial’ decisions made every weekend around the globe.

Within the same week, the Tokyo Olympic Games finally got underway after a 12-month delay, and Brisbane were awarded the rights to host the 2032 Olympic Games. Olympic fever (often called five ring fever) is in full flight.

It was reported on 11 January 2020 that the Professional Golf Association (PGA) of America has terminated its contract with a Trump Organisation relating to the hosting of the 2022 PGA Championships at a golf course owned by a Trump Organisation.

The name ‘Hamilton’ means a lot of things to a lot of people. To F1 motor racing fans, it clearly is a reference to British racing car driver Lewis Hamilton. For watch aficionados, it may be a reference to watch company Hamilton International, which was founded in 1892 and subsequently acquired by Swiss watch maker Swatch Group. 

As Australia starts to ease out of COVID lockdown, the ACT Government has announced that the capital’s cafes, restaurants and bars can begin to welcome more customers, provided they sign up to the Territory’s bespoke Check In CBR app. 

The famously anonymous street artist Banksy has lost a legal challenge concerning one of his best-known works, “Love is in the Air”, also known as “The Flower Thrower”. Full Colour Black, a UK greetings card business, successfully contested Bansky’s application to register the painting as a trade mark, in a case which neatly highlights the differences between trade mark rights and copyright.

It has recently been reported that Tom Petty’s family have issued a cease and desist warning aimed at preventing the US President Donald Trump from using Tom Petty songs at or in conjunction with presidential campaign events.

The lid has been lifted on intellectual property rights associated with peanut butter trade dress and branding. This interesting trade dress case sees Kraft all dressed up with no place to go, other than an appeal to the High Court. 

In the wake of the 2019/20 Australian Bushfire crisis, comedian Celeste Barber took to Facebook to launch her NSW RFS bushfire fundraiser, with the intention and constant reassurance that the funds would be going to those victims who needed it most. 

Led Zeppelin band members and fans were relieved when a recent decision of the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals preserved the jury verdict that the Led Zeppelin iconic rock song “Stairway to Heaven” did not infringe the copyright of the Spirit song, “Taurus” (the Stairway to Heaven case).

If you are at a trivia night, and the question is “what product in Australia is well known with reference to the initials ‘VB’”, there is a reasonable chance a lot of people would answer “Victoria Bitter” beer. Victoria Bitter is well known in Australia simply with reference to “VB”.

March 2020 should have been a big month in Australian sports and events. The NRL and AFL seasons were due to begin, the Formula 1 Grand Prix returned to Melbourne, and a number of sports were to conduct their trials for the 2020 Olympic Games and Paralympic Games in Tokyo.

Plant Breeder’s Rights (PBRs) are generally not as well-known as other forms of intellectual property rights such as patents, trade marks, copyright and designs. A recent Federal Court order highlights the benefits and protections of PBRs as an important intellectual property right. 

Those watching the recent National Rugby League Grand Final staged in Sydney on the weekend saw that the rub of the green did not go the way of Canberra’s “Green Machine”.

Reports last week about the hacking of the political think-tank Lowy Institute and of the question-and-answer website Quora were met with different responses by the affected parties. Reportedly, the Lowy Institute declined to comment, citing a policy of not doing so on security matters. 

Moulis Legal is pleased to announce the appointment of Warren Wong as patent and trade marks attorney, based in our Canberra Office.

Cybersecurity, like money, is one of those things that become screamingly important when there is a lack of it. Compliance is widely recognised to be a critical component of cybersecurity. This article considers how an in-house counsel and other legal practitioners can support a corporate client in pursuit of better compliance in cybersecurity.

Des Hasler was sacked as coach of the Canterbury Bulldogs Rugby League team on 19 September 2017. In April 2017 it was reported that Hasler and the Bulldogs had agreed to a two year extension to Hasler’s coaching contract. Or did they?

Making sure your business can be found easily on the World Wide Web is big business. Search engines like Google are constantly changing who they put first, second, third, and one millionth in their search results. How high a business ranks depends on how it attracts the attention of Google’s algorithms.

In social media, it is sometimes hard to work out whether information about a product or service is genuinely the opinion of a third party, or whether it has been encouraged or positioned by an undisclosed advertiser. 

Our clients are often surprised to learn that their registered Australian trade marks do not apply in other countries. However, like other forms of registered intellectual property rights, it’s true – trade marks are only registered on a per country basis.