Thieves of intellectual property rights should be looking over their shoulders because the FBI is now playing a lead role in investigating intellectual property crimes and may be planning a sting operation that will net them some serious prison time. FBI is currently working over 400 such cases, many of which are of global nature. Read the entire article by clicking the following link.
Saturday 11 September 2010
Appeals court ruling threatens used software sales
Can copyright holders prevent a buyer from reselling or renting a product after an initial sale, as long as additional copies aren't made? What does the San Francisco Federal Appeals Court say about this 102-year old First-Sale doctrine?
Friday 10 September 2010
Interested in participating in the Advanced LL.M/MSc programme of combined Intellectual Property Law and Knowledge Management?
Interested in participating in the Advanced LL.M/MSc programme of combined Intellectual Property Law and Knowledge Management, while enjoying the life in the Northern part of Europe? Go to Maastricht, the Netherlands.
The program is designed to train graduates to work as legal practitioners or management in knowledge-intensive industries and research institutes. The programme is divided into three terms, which are spread over one or two years, depending on whether the student is full or half time.During the first term, all students will learn the fundamentals of the law regarding knowledge valorisation and the protection of intellectual property.
They receive in-depth instruction in the workings of the EU and US systems of intellectual property protection. They also learn the form and function of international organisations, such as:
- World Intellectual Property Organisation;
- World Trade Organisation; and
- European Patent Office.
Students from both master's programmes follow the same programme structure into the second term, but with greater individual focus and more freedom to incorporate electives into the curriculum. During the third term, students will work on a master´s thesis.The advanced master in Intellectual Property Law and Knowledge Management (LL.M.) is primarily for lawyers and technology transfer officers, and offers a more generalised education in intellectual and property law.
The advanced master in Intellectual Property Law and Knowledge Management (MSc.) The MSc programme offered by Maastricht University may serve as a key step in preparing for the European Qualifying Exam. Please note that the profession of patent agent is highly regulated. Admission to the EQE is subject to precise requirements set by the EPO. These requirements include prior degrees obtained and work experience. See www.epo.org/patents/learning for information.
Benelux Office for Intellectual Property
The official website of the Benelux Office for Intellectual Property (http://www.boip.int/). Information in three languages: Dutch/Flemish, French and English.
Monday 30 August 2010
Abuse of Intellectual Property Rights?
http://the-ip-world.blogspot.com/
I was invited to by the National Commission for the Supervision of Business Competition on 30 August 2010 to act as an expert resource person in their discussion on the interpretation of the rules on abuse of dominant position.
This particular area of law is quite broad. One of the topics to be discussed relates to intellectual property. One of the key rules of Indonesian competition law is the prohibition of abuse of dominant position, pursuant to which enterprises may not abuse their dominant positions by way of, inter alia, restricting (access to) the market and restricting technology advancement. I agree with this and will discuss this somewhere below.
One sentence in their proposed outline that has intrigued me reads: IP rights holders may not abuse their IP rights.
I believe that this proposition is too far-reaching. In my opinion, IP rights holders may do whatever they want with their IP rights, because IP rights are the so-called "rights in the production of the soul" - I have invented this English translation for the German term "Rechte an den Produkten des Geistes" and the Dutch term "rechten op de voortbrengselen van de geest". I don't know whether this English term is known in IP Law.
Intellectual Property rights are the rights in the production of the soul and no one can be deprived of their rights in the production of the soul, as IP rights are also human rights - vide Article 27 of the 1948 United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. However, there are balance of rights of obligations and there are also rules on exceptions and limitations in the areas of IP.
A trademark owner has an absolute right to manage and dispose of his/her/its trademark. He/she/it may exploit his/her/its trademark commercially to the fullest extent and a trademark is always renewable. Therefore, a trademark owner can always prevent anyone else from using a trademark which is similar in substance or in entirety with his/her/its own trademark, and if necessary, in the worst battle before the court, to defend his/her/its rights. In the area of trademark law, there are nos such things as compulsory license.
Likewise in the area of Geographical Indication law. It is nonsense to condemn owners of GI rights for exploiting their rights to the fullest extent. GI belongs to the society or a group of companies in a certain geographical territory. GI rights are perpetual and there are no such things as GI licensing.
The exercise of these absolute rights should be viewed as not protecting IP owners only, but also protecting the consumers because:What the law mandates is that in exercising these absolute rights, IP rights owners must take the needs of the community into account. Therefore, there are rules on compulsory licensing in the area of patent law and, in accordance with the Annex of the Berne Convention, which is also embodied in our Copyright legislation, for educational purposes, local peoples may be given a license by the government to have foreign-language books translated and reproduced only for the purposes of meeting the academic needs. Compulsory licenses are not exclusive, but commercial licenses are.In my opinion, there are no such terms as "abuse of IP rights by IP rights owners", but it is possible that IP licensees (who are not the real IP rights owners) who will likely have the chance and opportunity to abuse their dominant positions as exclusive licensees, by restricting (the access to) the market and restricting technology advancement. If licensees are given rights equal to those of patent rights owners, for instance, then licensees may prevent others from making technology advancement. This is something that has been disliked since 1948.IP licensees are not IP rights owners and cannot exercise their rights excessively as if they were the real IP rights owners - European Court of Justice ruling in the case of Konstanz und Grundig [PS: I forgot the case number]. That's what I learned as an LL.M student in the Netherlands, back in 1998.What do you think?
Assignable Service Marks of Professional Services
In our Indonesian Trademark Law (Law No. 15 of the Year 2001) it is provided under Article 41 that:
(a) Assignment of marks can be accompanied by the assignment of goodwill, reputation and other things related to or pertaining to such marks; and
(b) the rights in registered service marks, which are inseparable from the capability, quality or personal expertise of the relevant service provider can be assigned to third parties provided that there is a guarantee and indemnity for the quality of the services to be rendered by the assignee.
My thought/thinking is that if the quality of the services rendered by the service provider is inseparable from his/her own personal capability, quality or expertise, how can the service mark, which he has registered for promoting his/her own quality services, be assigned to any third parties?
In our Civil Code it is written that obligations deriving from an act that can be done by a certain person cannot pass to any other persons.
Thus, if a father is a lawyer and so is the child and they form a law firm, the quality of the professional services rendered by the father is naturally different from that of the child, although if the father is a registered capital markets legal consultant and so is the child, the obligations deriving from the professional services rendered by the father in the area of capital markets law can pass to the child who is also qualified to practise in that area of law. But the quality of the professional services rendered by the father and the child respectively is different.
It will be a different situation in which a person runs a securities company that provides services, for example the underwriting of negotiable instruments issuance to be listed on the stock exchange. The services rendered by the company are not related to the personal capability, quality and expertise of the founders of the securities company. In this case it is very logical if the service mark is assignable.
My question is, why should the law open a possibility for individuals working professionally to render services, of which quality is inseparable from his/her own personal capability, quality and expertise, to assign the service mark which is related to his/her professional services if that is very illogical? Although the law allows the assignment of such service mark provided that there is a guarantee and indemnity for the the same quality of the services, such provision will intrigue people to give such guarantee/indemnity which in reality they cannot perform and, therefore, will be susceptible to a lawsuit or criminal prosecution for giving false statement.
What do you think and how does your national legislation deal with such issue?
Thursday 3 June 2010
IDLO Sharing Network
The International Development Law Organization (IDLO) - www.idlo.int - has created a sharing network for all of its alumni. A special theme on Intellectual Property is highlighted, including a home for IDLO Intellectual Property Resource Persons. The link is as follows: Pages - Home
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