Distributes a software product, in Iceland

Höfundalög nr. 73/1972 (Copyright Act), 1., 2., 54. og 56. gr. · Read the law's page

• Get the author's permission before you copy a work, in whole or in part, or make it available to the public, in its original or altered form, in translation or other adaptation, subject to the limits the Act sets elsewhere (art. 2).
• Treat any direct or indirect, temporary or permanent making of a copy of a work, in whole or in part, by any method and in any form, as copying (art. 2).
• Treat offering copies for sale, rent or loan, otherwise distributing them to the public, showing copies publicly, or performing the work publicly, including making it available so that anyone can reach it from a place and at a time of their choosing, as making the work available to the public (art. 2).
• Treat a computer program as protected in the same way as a literary work (art. 1).
• Expect imprisonment of up to two years for intentional or grossly negligent acts contrary to the author's exclusive right (art. 54).
• Expect to pay damages if you breach the Act intentionally or negligently (art. 56).

Lög um skaðsemisábyrgð nr. 25/1991 · Read the law's page

• Do not assume this Act answers whether standalone software is a product: article 3 defines a product as movables, parts of other movables or of immovables, and electricity, and does not name software (3. gr.).
• If you make a finished product or a part of one, supply a raw material, or put your name or trademark on a product as if you made it, you answer as its manufacturer; so does a person who imports a product into Iceland in the course of business to sell, rent or trade in it (4. gr.).
• If you distribute a product in the course of business without being its manufacturer, you answer for the loss unless you show it cannot be traced to your fault or neglect, and you answer directly to the injured person and to later distributors for loss traceable to fault or neglect of the manufacturer or an earlier distributor in the supply chain (10. gr.).
• If the injured person cannot find out who made or imported a product, name the manufacturer, the importer or your own supplier without undue delay, or you are treated as the manufacturer; the person you name must be liable under the Act and have a venue in Iceland (4. gr.).
• A product is defective if it is not as safe as could legitimately be expected, judged on how it was presented, the use that could reasonably be expected and when it was distributed; a better product reaching the market later does not make an earlier one defective (5. gr.).
• You carry the burden of proving an exclusion: that you did not distribute the product, that making or distributing it was not in the course of business, that the defect is due to mandatory public rules on its design, or that the defect could not be found on the scientific and technical knowledge available when it was distributed (7. gr.).
• Do not rely on a contract term made before the loss to depart from the Act to the injured person's disadvantage (12. gr.).
• Liability covers personal injury, loss of a provider and, for a thing ordinarily intended for private use, loss of at least 500 euros; your total liability for personal injury from identical products with the same defect is capped at 70 million euros (2. gr. and 8. gr.).
• A claim is time-barred three years after the injured person learned or could have learned of the loss, the defect and your name and residence, and is extinguished ten years after you distributed the product (14. gr.).

Lög um vörumerki nr. 45/1997 (Trade Marks Act), 13., 14. og 40. gr. · Read the law's page

• Do not expect to register as a trade mark a name, logo or other mark that is liable to mislead people, for example about the nature, condition or geographical origin of goods or services (art. 13, item 7).
• Do not expect to register a mark that without authorisation contains a coat of arms or other state emblem, a flag, the emblem of an Icelandic municipality, an official inspection or quality mark, or anything liable to be mistaken for them (art. 13, item 8).
• Get the consent of the right holder concerned before registering a mark that gives reason to believe it refers to the name of an active business, another person's name or image (other than a long-dead person's), or a distinctive property name or a picture of the property (art. 14, item 4).
• Expect a court to be able to prohibit use of a trade mark that is misleading, in the form in which it is used (art. 40).