News

Jarosław Sroczyński was a participant in the academic conference on “Copyright and Competition Law”, held on June 3, 2009 in Poznań by the Faculty of Law at the Higher School of Social Sciences and the Faculty of Law and Administration at the Adam Mickiewicz University. During the conference, Mr. Sroczyński presented a paper entitled “The Confrontation between Copyright and Competition Law in the Decisions Issued by the President of the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection”. The conference was attended by representatives of the academic community, the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection, copyright collective societies, lawyers and consultants.

On May 20 and 21, 2009 a conference of the Customs Service and the Jagiellonian University was held in Cracow on the role of the Customs Service in combating infringements of intellectual property rights. During the conference, Professors Janusz Barta and Ryszard Markiewicz participated in a panel discussion on “Combating infringements of intellectual property rights in the context of national and EU law, and an international case study”.

On May 5 and 6, 2009, at the Congress Centre in Ossa near Rawa Mazowiecka, the 34th Conference of the Polish Chamber of Electronic Communication (PIKE) was held to inaugurate the celebration of the 20th anniversary of cable television in Poland. During the conference Jarosław Sroczyński participated in a panel discussion on the impact of advertising on consumer awareness and the situation in the mass media industry. The conference was organised under the auspices of Professor Danuta Hübner, the EU Commissioner for Regional Policy, and was attended by representatives of the Senate and the Sejm, the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection, the Office of Electronic Communications and various ministries, mass media, advertising and consulting companies, etc.

A number of our articles have appeared in the journal “Marketing in Practice”. Issue 7/2009 included an article by Jarosław Sroczyński and Lukasz Wieczorek entitled “Non-competition agreements”. In issue 5/2009, Jarosław Sroczyński published an article entitled “Product placement – legal issues”. In issue 2/2009, Lukasz Wieczorek published an article on the subject of “Press law and journalistic ethics and media manipulation. The right to polemics and dementi”.

Jaroslaw Sroczynski has outlined the distinction between information qualified as advertising and purely commercial information, in a note published in “Rzeczpospolita” of March 23, 2009 (“Advertising and commercial information”). Prof. Janusz Barta and Prof. Ryszard Markiewicz have commented the copyright aspects of the so-called Google settlement, concerning the digitalization of libraries.

From February to May 2009, Jarosław Sroczyński conducted, as part of the pro bono activity of Markiewicz & Sroczyński, a Competition Law Workshop attended by a group of students of the Faculty of Law and Administration of the Jagiellonian University. The purpose of the workshop was to provide exercises in the drafting of an appeal against a hypothetical decision of the President of the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection, which was related to the conclusion of a prohibited agreement. During the workshop the participants carried out an analysis of relevant markets, prepared arguments concerning the alleged infringements of competition law and developed motions based on the evidence. A full draft appeal to be submitted by the addressee of the decision to the Court of Competition and Consumer Protection was drawn up.

On March 9, 2009 Jarosław Sroczyński delivered a lecture at the Institute of Intellectual Property Law of the Jagiellonian University as part of the “IP Student” Workshop for students of the university’s Faculty of Law and Administration. The lecture addressed the issue of combating unfair market practices and, in particular, discussed the key principles of Polish Law on the Counteracting of Unfair Market Practices and its role in the system of competition and consumer law.