Ernest Miller, clearly usurping Kim Weatherall (or perhaps Warwick Rothnie), reports a dispatch from Down Under, an article by Justice Sackville, “Cultivating the Creative Commons”. (A longer version, which I vaguely recall seeing, graces the pages of the Australian Intellectual Property Journal.)
I think, however, his Honour does himself a disservice by indirectly referring to himself as “old-fashioned, even Luddite” (a description that Miller picked up). Justice Sackville was, after all, the primary judge in Kabushiki Kaisha Sony Computer Entertainment v Stevens (2002) 200 ALR 55; 55 IPR 497; [2002] FCA 906.
The article that I vaguely recalled was Justice R Sackville, “Monopoly versus freedom of ideas: The expansion of intellectual property” (2005) 16 AIPJ 65. It has some similarities with “Cultivating the Creative Commons”, but is substantially different, which may be explained by the first footnote to the AIPJ article, which reads (in part):
This is a revised version of a paper delivered to the Australian Centre for Intellectual Property in Agriculture, Australian National University, on 23 December 2004.
The online article says that it was based on the speech he delivered at QUT’s Open Content Licensing: Cultivating the Creative Commons. (Also, not that I’m calling a Federal Court judge a liar, but ACIPA’s Web site says that the seminar was in September 2004.)
And then there are the cases that I should have recalled and now, thanks to CaseBase, I do:
- There was no excuse for me forgetting that he heard Australian Competition and Consumer Commission v Chen (2003) 132 FCR 309; [2003] FCA 897.
- He was (together with Finn J and Kenny J) a member of the Full Court that heard the appeal in Pacific Gaming Pty Ltd v Aristocrat Leisure Industries Pty Ltd (2001) 116 FCR 448; [2001] FCA 1636.
- He was the primary judge in Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing Company v Tyco Electronics Pty Ltd (2001) 53 IPR 32; [2001] FCA 1359. (An appeal was upheld in part: (2002) 56 IPR 248; [2002] FCAFC 315.)
- He heard argument relating to whether the Telecommunication Industry Ombudsman scheme was constitutionally valid, in the context of obliging Internet service providers to be members: Australian Communications Authority v Viper Communications Pty Ltd (2001) 110 FCR 380; [2001] FCA 637.
- He heard an interlocutory motion about the discovery of source code in Quanta Software International Pty Ltd v Computer Management Services Pty Ltd (2000) 175 ALR 536; 49 IPR 25; [2000] FCA 969. (The final hearing was before Wilcox J: (2001) AIPC ¶91-757; [2001] FCA 1459).
Sackville J is also the docket judge for the current litigation between Seven and News Ltd, which can be broadly described as ([2003] FCA 388 at [1], internal parentheses omitted):
These proceedings arise out of bids for the pay television rights to Australian Football League and National Rugby League. The applicants, Seven Network Ltd and its subsidiary C7 Pty Ltd, seek relief primarily by reason of what are said to have been contraventions of Part IV of the Trade Practices Act 1974 by the nineteen respondents in connection with the bidding for the pay television rights. The respondents include several very substantial corporations with interests in the media or in telecommunications.
(Other interlocutory skirmishes before Sackville J are: [2004] FCA 75, [2004] FCA 836, (2005) 214 ALR 686; [2005] FCA 244, [2005] FCA 510, [2005] FCA 599.)
It's not strictly technical, but I particularly like paragraph [1] of Sackville J’s decision in Becker Group Ltd v Motion Picture Company of Australia Ltd [2004] FCA 630.
And, topically, he once ruled in favour of Kostya Tszyu, “a well-known professional boxer”: Fightvision Pty Ltd v Tszyu [2000] FCA 1282 at [2].
