Editorial

• Author: Miquel Peguera
• Position: Associate Professor of Law, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (Barcelona, Spain)
• Pages: 111-112

Miquel Peguera

2018

111

2

Editorial

by Miquel Peguera*

© 2018 Miquel Peguera

Everybody may disseminate this ar ticle by electronic m eans and make it available for downloa d under the terms and

conditions of the Digital P eer Publishing Licence (DPPL). A copy of the license text may be obtain ed at http://nbn-resolving.

de/urn:nbn:de:0009-dppl-v3-en8.

Recommended citation: Miquel P eguera, Editorial, 9 (2018) JIPITEC 111 para 1.

1

It is always a pleasure to present a new issue

of JIPITEC, the Journal of Intellectual Property,

Information Technology and E-Commerce Law. This

Autumn issue is full of interesting and insightful

pieces, touching upon different hot topics, including

internet jurisdiction, online advertising, trade

secrets, and, last but certainly not least, copyright.

2

Jurisdictional issues regarding internet-related

activities is still a hotly debated issue, which has

been particularly exacerbated in the wake of the

General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which

became fully applicable last May. Two of the articles

published in this issue deal with the external reach

of EU law, in a context heavily inuenced by the

global nature of the internet. First, Dan Jerker B.

Svantesson explores three recent developments

in EU law that illustrate the current trends in the

eld of internet jurisdiction; namely, the territorial

scope of the GDPR, that of the proposed e-evidence

Directive and Regulation and, nally, the CJEU

judgment in the Bolagsupplysningen OÜ case. The

author puts forward a framework that illustrates

the core jurisprudential principles underpinning

jurisdiction, and that can also be used as a tool to

analyse whether some jurisdictional claims have

deviated from those principles. The analysis of the

selected developments leads the author to conclude

that they fail to appropriately follow the principles

embodied in that jurisprudential framework, and

* Associate Professor of Law, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya

(Barcelona, Spain). E-mail: mpeguera@uoc.edu. Editor-in-

charge for this issue of JIPITEC.

thus are liable to aggravate the negative trend of

hyper-regulation. To counter this trend, he suggests

recognizing those core principles as incorporated in

the EU’s foundational treaties.

3

In another piece, Adèle Azzi focuses specically on the

extraterritorial scope of the GDPR, particularly on

the application of the GDPR to the processing of data

carried out by controllers or processors who lack an

establishment in the EU. The GDPR applies to the

processing of personal data of data subjects who are

in the EU carried out by a controller or processor not

established in the EU, provided that the processing

activities relate to the offering of goods or services

to such data subjects in the EU, or to the monitoring

of their behaviour as far as their behaviour takes

place within the Union [art. 3(2) GDPR]. The author

examines the legitimacy and legal basis of such an

extraterritorial claim and nds that it can be deemed

legitimate and indeed in line with a global trend of

extending the reach of data protection laws. She

also examines whether it will be feasible to enforce

such a broad application of the GDPR and points to

a number of tools - including indirect enforcement

means - that may prove effective for that purpose.

4

Member Sates’ deadline for implementing the Trade

Secrets Directive, which provides for a minimum

harmonization on the eld, expired last June,

though many of them have not transposed it yet.

Regarding the transposition process currently taking

place in Germany, Tomas Hoeren examines the key

elements of the Directive and compares them with

the current provisions in Germany that deal with