Blue Chi’s

The first time I read this blog I was really entertained; the couple of posts I read were extremely descriptive and factual, it was really amazing to read about our life from a different perspective, not that I am from Qatar, but I think that the Gulf countries are very similar to a great extent when it comes to culture.

Recently, this blog has let me down; this family does not seem to understand the actual culture and seems to be living in the glossiness of the guesthood of the Qatari nation. I think that it is nice for these people to have an optimistic view on their new home, but I personally don’t think that they have been able to actually connect to the actual Khaleeji culture, it is extremely hard, if not impossible, for a foreigner to be able to be ‘part-of-the-group’. People would always treat you nice, you will always be their fully respected lovely guest, but you will never be part of them. I think that it is extremely lucky for them to be in the constant hospitality of the Qatari nation, but I was hoping to read something much more sociological, probably something more analytic about our behaviour, lifestyle, and ignorance as well. Life in Exile was nothing but praise and praise, I think that it goes back to the subconscious of the family in wanting-to-like everything in our new home, because they have already made the choice of moving there and they do not want to think of reasons to regret it. They might not be aware of this, but their attitude seems to reflect their will-to-like everything and anything they see, whether it is nice or not. and that is just not right.

The Trade Mark law is divided into two parts, laws regarding the application of a TM and the laws regarding the infringement of a TM, it is very much related to Passing Off as it is the form of protection available for those that do not have a TM.

TMs are regulated by the TM Act 1994 and the TM Directive (?). Upon exhuming a TM, one should go through the initial provisions of the Act (s1-3) to ensure the compliance of the mark with the requirements, which are as follows:

• s1 – The TM must be a mark capable of being graphically represented and capable of being distinguished. Smells and flavours were accepted at some periods, but the ECJ had now moved to the direction of disallowing them. The issue of the distinctive character could be acquired and would need to be proved by the applicant. It is not really clear what is meant by this last requirement.
• s3 – The absolute grounds for refusal are relatively easier to examine that the relative grounds. These include marks devoid of a distinctive character, signs that are exclusively descriptive, signs that are generic, and ones that might offend morals or deceive.
• s6 – Relative grounds for refusal involve rights of other people that might be violated by the granting of this TM. Identical marks on identical goods are clearly prohibited, while identical/similar mark on a similar goods would only infringe if there is a likely confusion in relation to the origin and in this sense confusion includes the likely hood of association with the earlier TM. A TM would also be rejected even when granted for different goods if it can be proved that the new TM would take unfair advantage of the previous TM or would be detrimental somehow (distinctiveness) to the previous TM.

The infringement rules regarding TM are very similar to those of the relative grounds of refusal. The rules are found in section 10 of the Act.

After eleven days of waiting, I finally received my iPod Photo today, I assume that it took this long due to the fact that I ordered a customised iPod with my real name and domain name laser engraved on it. http://www.apple.com/uk offered this feature for free so I actually chose to order it from there to have my name engraved, it costs a little bit more to buy from Apple, but the engraving came out really great, so I think that it’s really worth it. I realised yesterday that I could’ve bought it at a discount as they had a student offer, but I am not going to bother because I am not going to wait again!

The iPod Photo is such a beauty, I did not expect it to be this beautiful, starting from the package, the way it was wrapped, the actual thing, and all the way down to the screen and the menus. Hatred for my lacking phone MP3 player was growing on me and now I live in the light, I am going to start using my old phone because there is no way for me to tell if my Communicator 9500 is ringing when I listen to music as it does not have a vibration alarm feature. (Can anyone believe this?!) When I used to listen to music using my phone the music would automatically pause when someone calls. I am not going to carry my big brick along with my iPod, wallet and keys all in my pocket as well, that’s crazy.

Now moving on to the legal part of the post (yes, I am serious), Apple recently won a case against the original owner of the domain name http://www.itunes.co.uk for passing off. The rules for passing off state that a person cannot register a domain name that might create an misrepresentation that might deceive the public leading to damage to the goodwill of a business. The complex issue on this case was the domain name was registered to its previous owner years before Apple started the iTunes service. The court judged that the defendant’s ownership of this domain was detrimental to Apple, probably because his business not actually called “iTunes” and the fact the domain was only used for redirection purposes. The law seems currently to be relatively unfair for small businesses that might need to surrender their rights when faced by massive international businesses.

Very decent album from Amerie came out this April, the album is very well produced to create the exact right formula, just the good old RnB with a little of pop and a hint of hip-hop. Amerie’s album is a very enjoyable and diverse to some extent, the tunes are very catchy and are probably easily forgotten as well. This might not be a worldwide classic, but it is certainly worth a listen.

Album Title: Touch
Release Date: April 2005

1. 1 Thing
2. All I Need
3. Touch
4. Not the Only One
5. Like It Used to Be
6. Talkin’ About
7. Come With Me
8. Rolling Down My Face
9. Can We Go
10. Just Like Me
11. Falling
12. 1 Thing
13. Why Don’t We Fall in Love [Richcraft Remix]

*I highlighted what I thought were the most enjoyable tracks on this album.

Passing off is the law that allows trader A to prevent competitor B from passing his goods off as if they were A’s. The current test used for establishing passing off is the one derived from the case of Reckitt, the test involves establishing three parts:

1. that the claimant has “goodwill”.
2. a misrepresenting made by D that is deceives or is likely to deceive the public
3. damage to the good will of C caused by that misrep.

1 – Goodwill is a form of intangible property that leads customers to return to the same business or buy the same brand because of the quality of the reputation of the goods or services provided by the trader. Goodwill can manifest in a name, symbol, logo, packaging, get-up, and advertising style. Descriptive words cannot usually manifest goodwill unless if it can showed that the word has become distinctive in fact or has taken a secondary meaning. (Reddaway v Banham - Camel hair + Belts / Mothercare v Penguin Books) The secondary meaning must be specific to the goods and services of the source, at times the new acquired meaning could be understood as a generic name for that type of product making it unprotectable. (Linoleum Manufacturing Co v Narin). Goodwill can also manifest in the packaging, get up and trade dress. (Reckitt & Colman). It is usually unlikely for someone to acquire good will if he just started, but in Stannad v Reay (Mr Chippy for mobile fish and chips van) , three weeks were sufficient, it can be instantly acquired by intensive advertising. The goodwill is usually related to customers in the UK, but a business that is run outside the UK can acquire goodwill if it is internationally known and has customers in the UK. (Sheraton Corp of America v Sheraton Motels)

2 – Misrepresentation does not have to be intentional, an innocent misrep is not a defence, but the state of mind would be relevant for remedies. The misrepresentation could be related to the identity of the goods, the quality, the origin of the goods, or even the way in which the yare made, regardless of the aspect, the misrep must be material in that it leads or is likely to lead to confusion on the part of consumers. (Morning Star v Express Newspapers [1979]) The customers are to be taken on their actual states and is not an argument that with careful inspection mislead would not take place (Reckitt & Colman v Borden). There is currently no rule that requires the misrep to be in the same field, but there must be some association with the two. In Stringfellow v McCain Foods the claimant could not stop D from using the name of the nightclub on their chips, but in the case of Annabels v Schock the nightclub and escort agency were held significantly associated to have a possible confusion. In the case of Lego Systems v Lego M Lemelstrich D was stopped because of the possible expansion of C’s business in to the field which it was currently not involved with.

3 – Damage to Goodwill could be related to loss of existing trade and profit, loss of potential trade and profit, loss of licensing revenues, damage to reputation, and even to the dilution of the goodwill (damage to brand or name).

It is really shocking that nobody ever heard of this story, I myself thought that it was a late April’s fool. Once I read the forward, I don’t get any usually, and found out that it was not referenced, I made a quick search through the newspaper database that I have access to for my studies and found nothing about the topic. I was sure it was some sort of prank or joke that somebody thought it would be funny. Anyway, today a friend of mine asked if we heard about the story, and I told him that it was an April’s fool joke, he said that it wasn’t and his other friend actually showed him the website. I instantly made another search, and this time I actually found many information about the crime, it is true, and Omani student was held liable for manslaughter in April for killing a woman in Manchester.

The headlines were variable among the papers, the Express on its 7th of April issue put the headline, Maniac Who Killed Because He Could Not Stop Smoking. The mirror put the headline Knifeman Jailed, on the 6th of April 2005. BBC’s headline was Man Detailed For Fatal Stabbing.

I would cite the Mirror’s actual article as it is the shortest:

“A CRAZED knifeman who killed a woman as he recited from the Koran was ordered to be detained for life yesterday. Nasir Ali Alsenaidi, 20, stabbed student Terezia Sternbergerova to death and teacher Katherine Moore, 57, was seriously hurt in the attacks last year. Ali Alsenaidi turned on Slovakian Terezia, 25, as he walked the streets of Salford armed with a kitchen knife and reading from his Holy Book. Mrs Moore was targeted as she tried to drag the victim into the safety of her car. Ali Alsenaidi was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic and at Manchester crown court admitted manslaughter due to diminished responsibility. Afterwards Mrs Moore, who is recovering from cancer, said: “It is very sad.“”

The actual details of the crime are the same everywhere, but check out the extra details given in the first lines of the article by the Express:

A MUSLIM who felt he had “failed Allah” for being unable to give up smoking has been locked up for life after stabbing a nursing home carer to death in the street. Nasir Ali Alsenaidi, 22, launched a vicious knife attack on two strangers moments after he was spotted reading from the Koran.

The most amazing thing about this story is that nobody ever heard of it, it cannot be found on any Arabic resource regarding the topic and even the students in the UK did not know anything about the story, this is mostly because of the fact that the crime actually took place in summer and that only the trials conclusion was this April. I had to call a friend of mine in Manchester to actually know the ‘real’ details of the story, which seem to be a little bit different than what these people wrote. It sounds from the press that Nassir was some sort of Muslim extremist who actually was reading the Quran before he actually committed his crime, it was really so cheap the way the Express wanted so badly to emphasis how this MUSLIM did.

The real story, of what I actually heard from someone living in Manchester, was that Nassir was some guy that did not actually mix that much with the Omani, he was there with his brother and was probably sponsored by his own parents. His behavior and lifestyle fell below the expectations of the Omani community, it is suspected that he used to drink. The story talks about ‘smoking’, but now after I heard this story, I doubt that this has anything to do with smoking cigarettes. Anyway, only very few people actually knew about the story, mostly because not many people knew the guy and not many people were around there when it happened. He had a fight with his brother on that day that concluded in him leaving the house with a knife, and the rest of the story is known. I am not sure about the Quran part, it could be completely made up.

Moving on to the legal part of the story, Nassir was convicted for manslaughter on the basis on diminished responsibility. The effective difference between murder and manslaughter is that the judge has a discretion of what the punishment should be for manslaughter, while there is only one punishment for murder, that is life imprisonment. An accused of manslaughter can in reality be also sentenced a life imprisonment, so the difference is not really very clear in all cases. In the past the penalty for murder was the capital punishment, yet even though that it is now abolished, the difference between murder and manslaughter still exists as it is very possible for a person convicted of manslaughter to be sentenced a more specific lower imprisonment. There are two forms of manslaughter; voluntary and involuntary. Voluntary manslaughter are in reality situations of murder where the person convicted had his punishment reduced for some reason. In this example, Nassir had his conviction reduced from murder to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.

Diminished responsibility is in practice a defence to murder reducing it to manslaughter, it operates where the killer was suffering from such abnormality of the mind as substantial impaired his mental responsibility for his acts and omissions in doing or being a party to the killing. (This is section 2 of the Homicide Act 1957). Diminished differs from insanity as insanity applied to all criminal offences, while diminished responsibility can operate on murder only. There are some other technical differences, but as could be seen from this case, the conclusion is usually very similar, it is the imprisonment at some mental hospital.

Here is the link to the BBC’s report on this topic.

I was actually looking forward to listen to what I thought would be more than the average RnB album, but Faith Evans seriously let me down. I cannot feel this album; it is not my type, not even the major single “Again”. “Tru Love” is the only decent song in the album, I do not know if it’s fair to credit her for the song “Hope” because Twista sang the song and she is merely featured on it. The track “I Don’t Need It” had a really hot musical intro, but as she starts singing the music transforms to the ACTUAL rhythm of the song which actually sucks. “Ever Wonder” is not a bad song, it sounds like the usual Mario Winans track, reminds me of Tamia’s “Mr Cool”. Other than that, the albums bubbles here and there, I am actually wondering of what the claimed skill of writing Faith had was all about? The album is actually so average, if not bad.

Album Title: First Lady
Release Date: April 2005

1. Goin’ Out (featuring Pharrell and Pusha T)
2. Again
3. I Don’t Need It
4. Stop N Go
5. Mesmerized
6. Tru Love
7. Jealous
8. Ever Wonder (featuring Mario Winans)
9. Catching Feelings
10. Get Over You
11. Until You Came
12. Lucky Day
13. Hope (Twista featuring Faith Evans)

The provision of holiday and travel packages are usually considered as services and are governed by the same general rules that apply to services, yet stil, they are also governed by the codes of practice created by the extremely effective trade association of this industry: The Association of British Travel Agents ABTA. As the matter of tourism is a cross nation matter, the EC had to provide regulation over this issue, for this reason it passed the Directive on Package Holidays and Package Travel, this was implemented in the UK by the Package Travel, Package Holidays and Package Tours Regulations 1992 PatRegs (I made up this abbreviation). Currentl the PatRegs are the most important rules on this field, but the ABTA codes also create additional protection as well.

The PatRegs create new consumer rights and add to the duties of tour operators. Some provisions create criminal offences while other allow the conusmer to cancel what would otherwise be a valid contract. The Regs apply to ‘pre-arranged package’ travel and holidays. A package is widely defined by reg 2(1); it can be any prearranged combination of two of the following components offered for sale at an inclusive price (covering a period of more than 24 hours or including overnight accommodatoin), namely transport, accommodation, or other tourist services.

Reg 9 requires the operator to include certain info in the contract specified in schedule 2. Failure to comply is regarded as a breach of a condition under reg 9(3), with the result that the operator will not be able to rely on any term which is not sufficiently comprehsible and the consumer may cancel a contract not made in accordance with this reg. Some of the required info include destinations, means of travel, meals included, minimum number of tourists required, etc. The operator is obliged to provide the info before the contract is made and must include this info in the actual contract as well.

The PatRegs holds the supplier AND the retailer liable for inaccurate information, this means that a travel agent may have to accept responsibilty for a statement that he did not make himself. The distinction between terms and represntations becomes irrelevant due to reg 4 of the PatRegs as it provides that organisers and retailers incur civil liability if they supply descriptive matter (covers only written statements) concerning the package, the price of a package and any other conditions applying to the contract which contains any misleading information.

More specific statements may give rise to the possibility of an action for breach of contract, in some situations the court might have to imply a term into the contract, the court will rely on the test of the ‘officious bystander’: If the immediate response of both parties as reasonable men would be that the omitted term ought to be part of the contract, then it will be implied. This test would not always make sense as the two interests involved might conflict.

The general liability of the operators liabilty could be seen on two ways; strict liabilty for all damage foreseeably suffered by the consumer in a manner similar to the operatoin of the implied requiremetns of quality and fitness in a sale of goods contract, another vision would be to see tour operators as a contract of services supplied by a number of independent contractso so that the operator is only liable if he has failed to exercise reasonable care in selecting someone competent.

To Be Continued…

Utada is probably Japan’s most successful pop artist in Japan, at the age of 22, she has already sold more than 17 million. Exodus is her first full English album to be commercially released in the US. Outside her Japanese career, she previously sang with Foxy Brown in the Neptunes produced song for the OST of the movie Rush Hour 2, she also sang with Kiley Dean and Timbaland in the Olympics charity CD titled “Unity”. The whole of Exodus was produced and written by Utada, except for two songs that were produced by the famous Timbaland. The album was released last October, upon its release, it became the fastest selling English album to hit the million sales mark in Japan.

In the US, the album did not do well at all, probably due to the fact that the only single that was commercially released and had a video was probably the worst song in that album. The Japanese music culture is similar to that of the Arab world in that the lyrics are considered the pivotal aspect of the song, Utada’s has been known in Japan for her novel song writing, and instead of proving herself in her first English single, she chose to sing: “You’re easy breezy, and I’m Japanesey”. Luckily, the rest of her English song did not feature more of the this, and it was in fact an amazingly well written and well produced musical piece. I find classifying this album in a specific musical genre hard, it is not your usual pop, many relate Utada’s voice to Bjork, but that is only voice-wise. The album is floats from Japanese strings and bolts in Devil Inside, to Timbaland’s known blurps in Let Me Give You My Love, from the acoustic sound of About Me, and loop of 3aitha Al Minhali in Exodus 04. In addition to Timbaland and 3aitha, the album features Jon Theodore of Mars Volta on my most favourite track in the album: Kremlin Dusk.

After months of the release, there are rumours of Utada making releasing the song Exodus ’04 as commercial single in this month.. well that will be April 05, but that’s better than nothing at least. The track Exodus ’04 is produced by Timbaland and features a loop for one of 3aitha’s songs. I have decided to write this review now because I have ordered my copy of the album from Amazon recently.

Album Title: Exodus
Release Date: October 2004.
1. Opening
2. Devil Inside
3. Exodus ’04
4. Workout
5. Easy Breezy
6. Tippy Toe
7. Hotel Lobby
8. Animato
9. Crossover Interlude
10. Kremlin Dusk
11. You Make Me Want to Be a Man
12. Wonder ‘Bout
13. Let Me Give You My Love
14. About Me

All credit agreements in the UK are currently being regulated by the Consumer Credit Act 1974, which was, at its time, the most developed European piece of legislation on consumer credit, but that was only the initial period of the industry, when three companies used to offer credit services and only one credit card was available in the market. The credit industry excessively developed in the late 70s and 80s, and the Act quickly was found in a need of a serious reform for its failure to adequately regulate the credit industry. Since the start of the 90s reports and requests were made by various bodies in the UK asking the government to review the Consumer Credit Act, but the government did not respond. A couple of years ago, the DTI carried a great research on the credit market and made a proposition to the government to amend the Consumer Credit Act. The government finally took in the proposition and made a Consumer Credit Bill that was moving between the House of Lords and House of Commons for review. The Consumer Credit Bill featured great enhancement to the current system for the regulation of consumer credit in terms of licensing creditors, advertising for consumer credit, and the provision on extortionate credit bargains.

The Bill was almost at its final stages and was expected to become law by the end of the year 2005. My personal most astonishing feature of the act was the development of the extortionate credit bargains. The original 1974 Act enabled the court to actually open agreements between consumers and creditors that featured what was called then ‘extortionate credit bargains’. These are agreements in which consumers were made to pay massive amounts of payment. Under any form of contract, the court would usually not intervene to help a person that had a bad bargain, people that get a ‘bad deal’ cannot go to court to avoid the contract, but in consumer credit agreements, the court was given the power to reopen any agreements that features ‘extortionate payments’, and if the court does find an agreement that features this extortionate payment, it can reschedule the installments to be paid by the consumer, it can reduce the overall amount to be paid by the consumer, it can alter the APR, it can even set the whole contract if it wishes to.

Anyway, under the 1974 Act the requirement of an agreement to be extortionate was actually very hard to satisfy, in the last 30 years only 10 cases were successful. This is partially due to the requirement of extortionate credit, and the fact that almost nobody complained as in the last 30 years only 30 cases were heard.

The new Bill changed the requirement of extortionate to ‘unfair’. The bargain would not have to extortionate any more, but would have to be only unfair. This is a much more lenient that involves the way the credit made the consumer get into the contract and the status of the surrounding market as well. This should in theory make it so much easier to consumer to reopen agreements that feature unfair terms and payments to be made to credit lenders.

The Bill also was meant to establish an alternative dispute resolution scheme, where consumers would not have to the court to question the validity of their credit bargains, but instead go to a free ombudsman scheme that would do it for them.

All the consumer groups and involved associations were greatly excited about this new Bill, we at the uni spent more than a couple of weeks just studying the new provisions of the Bill and I even wrote an essay on extortionate credit bargains, but unfortunately due to the recent elections the Parliament changed and the Bill has now been abandoned. The Consumer Credit Act of 1974 would still be the main regulatory statute for consumer credit and consumers would have to persuade the government once again to amend it.

This was a recent example of the dynamic nature of what we study at uni, we’ll be studying something one day and the next week they will tell us that it is not valid any more, at times a case would be tried at the House of Lords changing the main rule regarding some topic and obviously it would not be found in any book because it was tried very recently. All the students that are doing the module on Consumer Law were sent an email saying that the exam will presume that the Consumer Credit Bill 2005 would still be valid…