Gecić|Law and the University of Belgrade’s Faculty of Law are proud to announce a cooperation agreement signed yesterday. The agreement defines collaboration on the recently established a Law and Technology Clinic. The pioneering educational initiative integrates cutting-edge technology with practical legal training. This partnership highlights our dedication to enhancing the educational landscape for law students through innovative approaches. The Law and Technology Clinic The clinic, initiated by Prof. Dr. Dušan V. Popović, a renowned professor in this emerging field, will be open to fourth-year undergraduate students. The Law and Technology Clinic offers a dynamic and interactive learning environment where students […]
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Polo shirts are probably more broadly recognized than the sport itself. Unlike t-shirts, polo shirts feature a collar, a sleek design, and a knitted polo player logo on the chest. However, if you’re not fashion-savvy and examine it closely, you’ll notice that this polo player logo varies. The U.S. Polo Association (USPA) logo depicts two polo players, one with a mallet raised upwards and the other downwards. In contrast, the Polo Ralph Lauren (PRL) logo features a single polo player with a mallet raised upwards. The primary difference lies in the presence or absence of the words “USPA” or “Polo […]
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Gecić Law is proud to announce an exclusive seminar that will explore the most critical aspects of law in the field of artificial intelligence (AI). The AI seminar titled “The Law in the Era of Artificial Intelligence” was organized in cooperation and with the exceptional support of the Union University Law School Belgrade. Participants will include students in their final years of study, master’s, and doctoral studies. The seminar will take place from October 16 to November 8. This intensive program will take participants through the general regulatory framework. It will also discuss ethical principles and parallels between EU law […]
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Introduction As we previously discussed, AI can have severe implications for intellectual property (IP) law, and it is safe to assume that IP is the area of law most affected by AI. One of the first significant issues recently has been with songs that use AI-generated voices. These sound like famous artists (like Drake, The Weeknd, Rhianna, etc.) or characters (like Sponge Bob, Eric Cartman, Goku, etc.). The story begins with the song “Heart on My Sleeve.” The song is, as far as we know, an original. But it features AI-generated voices made to sound like Drake and The Weeknd. […]
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This year, the internet has been captivated by a sensation known as “Barbenheimer,” a phenomenon that emerged just before the blockbuster film releases of “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer.” Having previously explored the Barbie intellectual property (IP) landscape, it’s astonishing to find yet another connection between these two cinematic sensations that stand at opposite ends of the IP spectrum. Oppenheimer and the IP Landscape When diving into the Oppenheimer film, a captivating narrative about J. Robert Oppenheimer and the atomic bomb, we find unexpected threads of intellectual property intricacies interwoven with the quest for nuclear energy. Unknown to many, the U.S. government […]
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Since the release of the Barbie movie, there’s been an unmistakable global buzz. Beyond film, it has driven sales across Barbie merchandise, from costumes and makeup to beverages and even a rentable Barbie dreamhouse. The success of the Barbie movie, dolls, and brand hinges on Mattel’s prudent approach to protecting their intellectual property rights. Origins The story begins in 1956 when Ruth Handler, a co-founder of Mattel Inc, came across a German doll named Bild Lilli during a vacation in Switzerland. Mattel took the Lilli doll and made some slight cosmetic alterations, changing the doll’s hairline and eyebrows. Thus, the […]
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Intro Artificial intelligence (AI) is set to change how we perceive intellectual property. With the recent surge of AI, people are discovering that AI can generate works of art. This raises important questions, such as the attribution of authorship for these creations and the protection of intellectual property (IP) rights. We explore some critical issues regarding AI and its connection with IP here and offer potential solutions. We also provide insight into famous cases and trends that may be crucial for the further development of AI in IP rights. The Owner of the Copyright So, who is the author of […]
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The National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia adopted the Amendments to the Patent Act (“Amendments“) on December 8, 2021. The Act seeks to harmonize local protection of inventions regulations with those of the European Union. It also looks to eliminate certain shortcomings that have been identified in the application of the existing Patent Act. Therefore, the most important changes relate to the supplementary protection certificate and the protection of inventions through a utility model system. The changes will have a significant impact on the Serbian pharmaceutical industry and potentially incentivize investments by domestic entities. These changes seek to eliminate […]
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The imaginary familiarity with a famous person through platforms such as Instagram is more common when the other party is a so-called influencer – a person that enjoys appreciation of a large number of users due to their reputation. The imaginary closeness is, on the other hand, a very powerful tool in hands of influencers as users often aspire to emulate their lifestyle. However, the lifestyle the influencer presents is not always genuine as the content presented often includes (some form of) promotion. When an influencer shows on their profile that they use a certain product, there is a great […]
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Legal Framework for the so-called influencing To say that there is no special advertising act in Bosnia and Herzegovina (“BiH”) is not completely true. Namely, certain forms of (illegal) advertising are regulated by the Prohibited Advertising Act. This Act regulates the protection of merchants from illicit advertising, the protection of procedures and determines forms of illicit advertising. On the other hand, advertising as such is regulated indirectly at the level of the Federation. In this regard, the Consumer Protection Act is applicable, considering that BiH is one of few European countries that has neither a media act nor an electronic […]
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Influencer marketing is a fast-growing discipline, and the number of influencers is growing every day in our region. Like Serbia, Croatia is also “fertile ground” for influencer marketing and numerous extremely “influential influencers”. Testimonies of many, both “micro” and “macro” influencers from Croatia, demonstrate that this indeed amounts to a full-time job. So, how does one hire an influencer? In a nutshell, after “becoming famous”, influencers receive offers to promote various products and services on a daily basis, but how is this activity legally regulated in Croatia? Stay tuned, as we discuss below in greater detail the legal position of […]
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Who are “influencers”? Developments in technology and the significant influence of social networks on modern life, have resulted in the development of a completely new breed of digital marketers – influencers[1]. Increasingly, successful brands now recognize influencer marketing as an extremely effective way to advertise their business which in turn expands their reach and increasing the sales of products and services. The term influencers originated in the English language, and many other languages, including Serbian, use anglicisms to refer to influencers to denote influential people within a certain group of people. We are familiar with their work today on various […]
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For many years now, watching movies and series has shifted to various internet platforms, while authors are wondering where their copyrights are in all of this. Answers to that question should be provided by the Copyright and Related Rights Act (‟Copyright Act”), which came into operation more than 11 years ago, during a surge in the use of various data exchange platforms. Data is exchanged much faster, and computer technology is far more complex than it was before, and the Copyright Act is lagging behind in its response to emerging challenges regarding new ways of using technology and protecting authors. […]
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On December 3, 2020, the Fourth Chamber of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) rendered a judgement in the case Star Taxi App SRL v Unitatea Administrativ Teritorială Municipiul Bucureşti prin Primar General and Consiliul General al Municipiului Bucureşti providing some extremely interesting conclusions, to say the least. But let us leave the conclusions for later, and first touch upon the factual bits and pieces of the case. The Romanian company SC Star Taxi App SRL is a manager of an application which places users of taxi services directly in touch with taxi drivers all over Romania. […]
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The Necessity of the Digital Single Market… Not only is the global economy flourishing, it is going digital also. Information and communications technology is no longer a specific business sector but the foundation of all modern innovative economic systems. The Internet and digital technologies are transforming the lives we live, the way we work –personally, in business, and in our societies as they increasingly weave their way into all sectors of our economy and community. Consequently, our lives and, especially, our businesses need to follow global trends such as competitive strategies, marketing techniques, and business models, and that would not […]
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Is there another earthshattering change in the tech sector that will be making headlines for the next few weeks? Tech behemoths have certainly kept journalists and bloggers on their toes lately due to many recent dramatic changes and major decisions. WhatsApp, a company owned by Facebook, wanted to go the whole nine yards to become the most successful messaging and calls application, so its executives have quite recently reached a decision to update its privacy policy. As it rolled out the latest updates for Android and iOS, the internet exploded with claims that this encrypted messaging app, whose major selling point […]
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Whenever you leave your home, buy something, apply for a job or pay bills these days – pretty much almost whatever you do – your personal information is used, collected or processed. In order to protect your right to private life regarding the automatic processing of your personal data, the Council of Europe adopted the Convention for the Protection of Individuals with regard to Automatic Processing of Personal Data – ETS No. 108 (“Convention 108”). (No) Need to Modernize the Convention Convention 108 is the first binding international instrument protecting individuals against abuses that may accompany the collection and processing […]
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Is bad stronger than good? It is a fact that people are far more inclined to remember negative criticism or comments, than praise. It takes so many positive events to make amends for just one negative event. The Court of Justice of the European Union issued a Press release on October 3, concerning judgement in the case in which Mme Eva Glawischnig-Piesczek sued Facebook Ireland before the Austrian courts. She requested the removal of the notably harmful comment by a Facebook user which Austrian courts found insulting and defaming. The news immediately hit the headlines! The plain and simple truth […]
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In the second decade of the 21st century, the Internet network (the “Net”) became easily accessible to almost everyone, as well as the most important source of information. This is because, in addition to the availability of reviews and information collection, the Net has become easily accessible to create and upload different information and content by anyone. As a result, the Net has become the most widely used source of information, through which information from the different spheres could be found in the simplest and the fastest way. However, other than information, certain articles, images, photos, audio, audio-visual recordings and […]
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In our previous piece (link), we discussed the relationship between IT companies and developers in the field of material copyrights over computer programs (“software”) in context of commercial usage of software by IT companies. However, the relationship between IT companies and developers in the field of copyrights might be of particular importance when it comes to amendments, adaptations, adjustments and other changes to the software as a copyrighted work. Namely, IT companies often modify, customize, upgrade and/or update software developed by their employed developers and/or external developers, or deliver the subject software to their clients for further modifications, customizations, adaptations, adjustments and […]
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Over the past decade, Serbia witnessed an unprecedented growth of its IT/ICT market, becoming one of the most attractive outsourcing and R&D destinations in Eastern Europe (link). Key players such as Microsoft, Adobe, Oracle, Google, HP, SAP, IBM, Siemens, Intel, Cisco, NCR Corporation, Telenor, Erickson, Endava and others grabbed this opportunity, either by establishing development centers in Serbia or outsourcing services to local IT companies. This resulted in two prevailing models – providing services through employed programmers/system architects/etc. (“developer/s”), or by engaging external developers (primarily registered entrepreneurs), a rather novel development. Because software may, as an original intellectual creation, represent […]
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As announced by one of our previous publications, the new rules on personal data protection were adopted at the European Union (“EU”) level on April 14, 2016. Referred to as “the culmination of over four years of hard work” in the joint statement of the European Commission (“Commission”) First Vice-President, Vice-President in charge of the Digital Single Market and Commissioner for Justice, Consumers and Gender Equality, the new policy aims to extend the citizens’ right to personal data protection, enhance legal certainty for businesses by unifying the regulation within the EU and allow for improved cooperation of Member States’ criminal […]
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We are pleased to announce that our partner Bogdan Gecić together with Dr. Tatjana Jovanić, an associate professor at the University of Belgrade Faculty of Law, co-authored the Serbian chapter for Legal Aspects of Doing Business in Europe – Second Edition. The chapter provides a comprehensive overview of most important legal aspects for both domestic and foreign investors and businesses in Serbia. The chapter provides an in-depth analysis of the following topics: Enterprises: Establishment, Acquisition & Bankruptcy Customs Regulation Investment Incentives and Currency Regulation Competition and Market Regulation Intellectual Property Employment Banking The edition is published by Juris Publishing, Inc., a full-service […]
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