Cartier v British Sky Broadcasting, and the Rise of the Website Blocking Order: A Challenge for Scots Law?
| Published date | 01 May 2020 |
| Pages | 251-256 |
| DOI | 10.3366/elr.2020.0629 |
| Date | 01 May 2020 |
In recent years, intellectual property (“IP”) law has found itself increasingly at the sharp end of developments in the law of remedies, in large part as a result of European Union (“EU”) intervention in the field. One innovation which is increasingly being used, particularly before the English courts, is the website blocking injunction. Under such an injunction, internet service providers (“ISPs”) are required to block access to third party websites through which IP infringements are being committed. In these cases, intermediaries who themselves have committed no legal wrong are nonetheless required to take steps to stop their services being used by infringers. While such orders have a solid statutory basis in the UK in relation to some forms of IP infringement, the position was less clear in relation to other IP rights. That uncertainty has now been resolved – in English law at least – in appeals to the Court of Appeal and Supreme Court in
The concept of the no-fault intermediary injunction was first introduced by the EU in relation to copyright infringement.
At EU level, the copyright-specific provisions of the Information Society Directive were expanded to other IP rights by the Intellectual Property Enforcement Directive (“IPED”).
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