Certain features of the Trademarks Act 2000

There is no doubt that the Trademarks Act 2000 was a most welcome addendum to our statute book. It has provided the owners of trademarks with new channels for protecting their intellectual property and extended the scope of protection afforded to service marks. This latter category was previously afforded no protection whatsoever under our law. The mechanisms formerly obtaining, based primarily on the Industrial Property (Protection) Ordinance 1899, had become outdated and out of touch with the realities of the modem world where some trademarks have acquired tremendous commercial magnetism coupled with an immense financial value. The roots of the Trademarks Act 2000 are to be found in a number of different sources. Pre-eminent amongst these are the United Kingdom Trademarks Act 1994, EC Directive 84/104/EEC on the approximation of the laws of member states relating to trademarks, the Paris Convention for Protection of Industrial Property 1883 and the TRIPS Agreement of 1995. Stating that the provisions of the 1994 United Kingdom Act were incorporated into our law lock, stock and barrel is hardly an exaggeration; indeed few differences will emerge upon a comparison of the two. Such a state of affairs should be welcome as the learned judgements of the courts of the United Kingdom will undoubtedly serve as a thorough guideline as to the manner in which the provisions of our new law are to be interpreted.peer-reviewe

Driver perception-reaction times in level 3 automated vehicles

In Level 3 automated vehicles (AVs) the driver may engage in secondary tasks but must re-engage in driving if alerted when roadside circumstances exceed the capacity of the AV technology. The research aim was to establish the Perception-Reaction Time (PRT) of drivers in a Level 3 AV in relation to person-specific characteristics, to scenarios with different in-vehicle distractions and type of alerts. This PRT value was compared to that used in road design in different countries to calculate Stopping Sight Distances (SSD). Such PRT is important because the driver needs a timely alert for safe handover from automated to manual vehicle control. The data was collected through a web-based survey which provided demographic information about the respondent, followed by a driving simulation in a Level 3 AV. Driver PRT was taken from the moment of the alert to the moment that participant reacted by clicking an on-screen box. The results gave an average perception-reaction time of 4.23 seconds and showed that the younger age groups have lower PRTs for all scenarios than their older counterparts both for different alerts and secondary tasks. If the existing design standards for SSD are retained, such distances would not be sufficient to allow the driver to resume the driving task in a timely manner. It also resulted that the multisensory alert advantage over the visual alert is effective only until the cognitive capacity of the participant was not exceeded. Such was exceeded when the secondary distraction was reading and typing of a text message.peer-reviewe