I’d been unaware of the new web-based publication, Law in Firm which was released last week by the Village-Justice portal, and an article by Pierre Breese on the protection of scents by copyright, spring from a January appellate court decision involving Oreal and Bellure. Perfumes are creative works, and their authors are entitled to protectionLest you think that scents are trivial Dr. Alan Hirsch of the Smell and Taste Research Foundation in Chicago claims that women’s bowling scores can be increased 27% by the smell of jasmine..
This follows an earlier Dutch decision in Lancome v. KecofaLancôme Parfums et Beauté et cie S.N.C. v. Kecofa B.V. Court of Appeals at Den Bosch (C0200726/MA) Decided June 8, pub. June 21, 2004 Available in Dutch at http://www.rechtspraak.nl (LJN number: AP2368). noted up in a very good Indian IP newsletter – which ranks as the best piece of Indian law firm marketing material I’ve ever seen. The Dutch courts have pioneered this extension of the law of copyright, in ways which the French courts have followed – and North American courts seem behind.
However, there are analogies, in North American law.
Given my experience with plagiarism litigationSee the Karen Mamone incident, the Hannah Glasse scandal, and Robin Wicken’s confession, involving cookbooks – my addition of cardomom makes my version of this recipe quite different from your’s and thus I’m not infringingSee the practical advice on how to avoid this error in food writing. – makes me wonder whether there aren’t going to be trace herbs added to thwart copyright infringement allegations.
So are we likely to see smells copyrighted in Canada? We’ll see.
And only 3 months late, here comes the WSJ Blog: http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2006/07/13/should-perfume-have-ip-protection-a-french-court-says-no/