No, I'm on the plane

Published on Sunday 30 March 2008 19:56

TECHNO FILE

PASSENGERS on UK planes could soon be able to make phone calls in the air. Telecoms regulator Ofcom has decided to allow the airwaves to be used for in-flight calls but has warned consumers about the cost of doing so, which is likely to be high. Ofcom says it will allow airlines to use part of the radio spectrum to relay calls from planes to mobile networks using specialised on-board equipment. Phone users will connect to the equipment on the plane that will then connect to their own networks. The regulator, though, says it is not in control of the prices to be charged and these couldbe high. No systems will be introduced unless they have been approved by air safety bodies the Civil Aviation Authority and the European Aviation Safety Agency.

Shades of Cyclops

A UK company is being sued alongside comic firm Marvel and film production company 20th Century Fox over sunglasses that mimic those in the film Fantastic Four: The Rise Of The Silver Surfer. RDP is a London-based company that sources promotional film merchandise.

It has items connected to Star Wars, Batman and Spider-Man in its list of past products.

Sports clothing and equipment firm Oakley is suing all three companies over a pair of sunglasses included in a gift pack produced to promote the Fantastic Four film. It claims the sunglasses violate rights it holds in the design through a US design patent.

"The defendants, individually and collectively, are selling sunglasses that copy the (Oakley] design," says the company in its lawsuit. "The 'Penny' copy sunglass sold by defendants embody the subject matter claimed in Oakley's design patents… without any license."

Actor James Marsden wore a specially-made pair of Oakley sunglasses when he played Cyclops in the film X-Men.

"On information and belief, defendants are using the copy sunglasses to promote the Fantastic Four movie," say Oakley's court papers.

Free rulings for all

A FREE law publication charity will publish the UK's 3,000 most important legal decisions freely for the first time by June. The project will involve publishing vital rulings, dating back to the 19th century, on which UK common law is based. English law and Scots law are based on acts passed by parliament and by decisions made by courts that other courts must follow, which is called common law. But many of the rulings that make up the body of common law across the UK are very old and only published by commercial law publishers. The British And Irish Legal Information Institute (BAILII) says it will publish nearly 3,000 of the most important rulings, as chosen by academics, free, by this summer. The project approached academics at universities all over the UK and asked them to list the most important rulings in their area of expertise. It then sought permission to publish those rulings one by one. "It's been a long slog," says Joe Ury, BAILII executive director. He says the project was returned a list of 2,600 judgements and it has now published 1,900 of those. He says in total it will publish 2,900 verdicts by June of this year when the project ends.

Footers failing

SOME of the UK's biggest retailers are failing to fulfil their legal obligations in their e-mail marketing, a study has found. CD WOW!, Game, Topshop and Waterstone's were amongst the companies that failed the tests set by an internet marketing consultancy. The Companies Act of 1985 says business corresponsance (of which e-mails are now part) should include a company registration number, place of registration and the registered office address of the business, but almost half of the marketing e-mails analysed by dotMailer failed to do so.

"This should be set out in the e-mail footer in a clear, concise manner," says the report by consultancy dotMailer. "Incredibly, 21 retailers in our survey did not include all of this information, therefore potentially breaking UK legislation."

The company surveyed e-mails from 46 companies.