Super proud of my client Hāpi who has been awarded café of the year at the Hawkes Bay Hospitality Awards. Damn right!

Check them out on Hastings Street in Napier, at the Black Barn markets on Saturdays, at the Hawkes Bay Farmers Market in Hastings on Sundays or you can buy their amazing products at the Harbourside Market at Chaffers in Wellington on Sundays or online at https://hapi.nz/. More details in these links:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BmJol7RhEYd/?taken-by=hapinz

https://www.facebook.com/hapinapier/photos/a.1065322303492017.1073741828.1048935065130741/1991254274232144/?type=3&theater

https://www.hawkesbaynz.com/eat-and-drink/eat/the-food-guide-guide/hospitality-award-winners-2018/

https://hapi.nz/

There is a brew-haha fermenting over the use of the term 'Heke' on beer. Waiheke Brewing Company has released a beer called 'Heke', short for 'Waiheke Island'. Ancestors of Hone Heke, a famous Maori activist, are opposed to use of their ancestor's name in association with alcohol. Radio New Zealand National interviewed me to ask who is going to win the case.

I see this as a case of offensiveness, not ownership. Let's face it, people's names are hard to own. There are plenty of cases of unintentional offence - the Lego Bionicles characters with Maori names that were said to trivialise and inappropriately use Māori culture and the Fiat car advertisement with women doing the Ka Mate Haka in a culturally inappropriate way. What about Koran for wine, Redskins for a football team - actual examples from the US? The legal question isn't whether any offence was intended, but is it offensive to a particular group?

The Intellectual Property Office of New Zealand has the power to prevent registration of a trade mark that is offensive. Hone Heke's ancestors can't sue Waiheke Brewing Company just for being offensive though, but is it a good PR move for Waiheke Brewing Company to market a product that causes offence to a particular group?

You can listen to the interview here:

The New Zealand Law Society recently published my article about Kim Dotcom being awarded $90,000 against the Attorney-General by the Human Rights Commission. Kim Dotcom says he will now go after former Prime Minister John Key. You can read the article here.

I was recently interviewed by Jock Anderson for the online magazine of the New Zealand Law Society Law Points. You can read the article below by clicking on the link.

Grounded high speed ski racer itching for water thrills

The naughtiest of four sisters, a party girl, and “a bit of trouble at school,” intellectual property specialist and water ski racer Kate Duckworth has lived life in the fast lane. Read more.

I listened to a great podcast on BBC World Service about trade secrets in the food industry called "Food Confidential". The podcast is part of a series called "The Food Chain" that explores other issues that touch on intellectual property like genetic engineering. Excellent to hear an interesting discussion on intellectual property in the mainstream and on a topic we can all relate to. Click here to listen to the podcast.

I was the only New Zealand female to be named by Managing Intellectual Property in IP STARS Top 250 Women in IP in 2017. Click here to see the list. This list recognises female IP practitioners in private practice who have performed exceptionally for their clients and firms in the past year. Very happy with that indeed and cannot disagree!

Click here to have a listen to me being interviewed by Simon Fawkes of B2M in a podcast called "Making Sense of Intellectual Property". I think I sound pretty good.

My latest article has been published in the LawTalk magazine - the magazine of the New Zealand Law Society. A honour to have such a publication publish my article. You can read the article below or click on it to be taken to the Law Society website:

But wait, there's more!

It has been nearly six years since the District Court first executed warrants in January 2012 on request from the United States in a bid to extradite Kim Dotcom and his business partners to face copyright claims over the file sharing website megaupload.com. Ever since then Dotcom has opposed his extradition.

The United States say that Kim Dotcom’s now defunct megaupload.com file sharing website infringed copyright. It says that Kim Dotcom and his colleagues knew that its users were engaged in widespread piracy of copyright material like songs and movies. Dotcom and his colleagues said that they didn’t have any knowledge of what its users downloaded or uploaded on the megaupload platform.

The latest is the High Court decision Kim Dotcom v The District Court at North Shore [2017] NZHC 3158 [15 December 2017].

The background to this latest round is that in 2015 the District Court ruled that Dotcom should be extradited. Dotcom unsuccessfully appealed that decision to the High Court. Dotcom has appealed that decision and the appeal is due to be heard in the Court of Appeal in early February 2018.

The most recent decision from the High Court relates to a strike out application by the United States for seven of the eight causes of action in judicial review proceedings brought by Dotcom.

The judicial review proceedings are largely focussed on the original warrants issued by the District Court. The Supreme Court has already ruled the warrants valid.

The United States sought to strike out on the basis that the causes of action disclose no reasonably arguable cause of action or are an abuse of process, largely because the issues have been dealt with by the Supreme Court or are the subject of the appeal to the Court of Appeal.

It was a resounding loss for Dotcom and a win for the United States. The judicial review proceedings were said to be seeking to re-litigate matters determined by the Supreme Court already, or on appeal to the Court of Appeal.

The judicial review proceeding remains live in relation to just the eighth cause of action and is due back in court in early February 2018.

No doubt we will hear more about Dotcom in 2018 with the Court of Appeal due to hear the appeal on the extradition ruling and the High Court hearing the judicial review proceedings challenging the warrants.

A lot of losing has been going on for New Zealand's National party. In the same week it lost its place as New Zealand's governing political party and lost a copyright case in the High Court.

The New Zealand First party chose to form a coalition with the Labour party leaving the National party out in the cold despite winning the largest percentage of votes.

And then the High Court issued its decision finding that the National party's theme music from a television advertisement from the 2014 election infringed the copyright related to Eminem's "Lose Yourself" song.

Ouch. What a week.

You can hear Eminem's "Lose Yourself" here:

And this is the song without the lyrics:

And this is the music from the National party's television advertisement:

Here's the television advertisement:

What do you think? Pretty similar? "Pretty legal", which is how a National party politician described it?

The judge didn't think so. The two pieces were considered "strikingly similar". The National party has appealed to the Court of Appeal. Pity they can't appeal the election finding. Three more years ...