Posts Tagged: "intellectual property"

One of the more indelible images of the civil rights movement are those from the Spring of 1968 as Black sanitation workers went on strike in Memphis, Tennessee holding signs that read “I am a Man,” in their fight for economic equality. (This is the reason that civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. was visiting Memphis when he was assassinated on April 4, 1968.) Now those signs should not only read “I am a Man Who Thinks,” but “I am a Man Who Thinks and My Thoughts are Valuable.” Thus, a skillful IP attorney can be a modern day civil rights attorney by aiding Blacks to create IP rights in order to preserve their exclusive right to economically exploit the fruits of their creativity.

Many may initially wonder what IP has to do with civil rights. After all, IP rights (IPR) have always been understood in terms of individual economic incentives for creating society-wide public good in the form of cultural works, like art and music, and scientific knowledge such as medicines. The interrelationship initially seems odd because, regardless of political leanings, many are turned off by any mention or use of identity politics. Yet, as one leading scholar observed, “we cannot understand intellectual property today without recognizing the identity struggles embedded within it. Intellectual property’s convergence with identity politics reveals links between cultural representation and development, which traditional economic analyses of intellectual property overlook.” Thus, I ask should IPR be the new focal point of the civil rights movement in America?

Yesterday, Kolon Industries Inc. and several of its executives and employees were indicted for allegedly engaging in a multi-year campaign to steal trade secrets related to DuPont’s Kevlar para-aramid fiber and Teijin Limited’s Twaron para-aramid fiber. The conspiracy and theft of trade secrets counts each carry a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a fine of $250,000 or twice the gross gain or loss for individual defendants and a fine of $5 million or twice the gross gain or loss for the corporate defendant. The obstruction of justice count carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison and a fine of $250,000 or twice the gross gain or loss for individual defendants and a fine of $500,000 or twice the gross gain or loss for the corporate defendant.

The WIPO Assemblies, which met from October 1-9, 2012, took stock of the Organization’s substantive work over the last year, and provided direction for the future work program. At the closing of the Assemblies, WIPO Director General Francis Gurry welcomed the “extremely constructive engagement of member states” in the work of the Organization as demonstrated in the decisions taken by the Assemblies. He underlined the progress made by member states in setting timetables for concluding negotiations on international instruments on access to copyrighted work by the visually impaired, design law and intellectual property and genetic resources, traditional knowledge and folklore.

Innovation and how to foster next generation technologies is a topic of very active discussion within businesses across the country. But how can America continue to be one of the most innovative countries in the world? The rapid adoption of IP management and licensing platforms built around social collaboration seems to lead us to one answer – open innovation. Indeed, with today’s technology allowing for the seamless transfer of information – R&D departments have little to no choice but to begin to embrace the open innovation model and use it to their advantage. Understanding your intellectual assets and being able to capitalize on them in order to generate more revenue must be an important part of managing IP and fostering innovation.

I am all for coherent strategies, but this seems a bit odd if you ask me. During the summer months in the last year of President Obama’s first term? Could this have anything to do with the fact that he is increasingly unable to raise campaign contributions from Wall Street and is instead nearly exclusively turning to Hollywood for donations? Frankly, even if there are broader political motives at play, it is about time that IP take on a more prominent role.

Earlier in the week BIO also unveiled another report it commissioned and which was authored by Lori Pressman, David Roessner, Jennifer Bond, Sumiye Okubo, and Mark Planting. This report, titled Taking Stock: How Global Biotechnology Benefits from Intellectual Property Rights, discusses the role of intellectual property rights in encouraging upstream research and development as well as downstream commercialization of biotechnology. More specifically, the report outlines how intellectual property rights and technology transfer mechanisms encourage collaboration and lead to the research and development of new biotechnologies, particularly in emerging and developing economies.

It is also probably correct to say that the current business model for licensing technologies is extremely inefficient, not only because of the lack of a central clearinghouse, but because many of those who would be most interested in acquiring rights to exciting new technologies are really too small to attract the interest of patent owners. Even if they are large enough to attract interest from patent owners it take real time and real money to acquire rights. You don’t simply walk into a neighborhood bodega and order the rights to X technology for Y dollars, put it into your knapsack and walk away. Negotiations are hardly standard, must take into account multiple unique scenarios and are like any other business deal — unique. That requires attorneys to get involved and we all know what happens then, right? Too frequently attorneys get in the way of doing a deal rather than facilitate one.

Australia and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) today signed an agreement detailing how an AUD$2 million Australian contribution would assist least-developed and developing countries improve their intellectual property systems.

The stage is set for a new international treaty that would extend the protection for audiovisual performers, granting them both economic and moral rights similar to those already recognized for music performers. Over 500 negotiators from WIPO’s 185 member states, as well as actors, industry and other stakeholder organizations will meet in Beijing from June 20 to 26, 2012 to finalize discussions on an international treaty to update the intellectual property rights of audiovisual performers, such as film and TV actors and actresses. The meeting will be opened on June 20, 2012 at the China World Hotel by WIPO Director General Francis Gurry and high ranking Chinese State and Beijing Municipality officials.

Information on the world’s specialized intellectual property courts can now be found in one place. The Study on Specialized Intellectual Property Courts, a joint effort published by the International Intellectual Property Institute (IIPI) and United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), is the first study to catalog the world’s specialized intellectual property court regimes. Not surprisingly, the study concludes that governments around the world should adopt some form of specialized IPR court to handle intellectual property cases. Specialized IPR courts were found to enhance efficiency, lead to more timely resolution and foster more consistent rulings and outcomes. Such courts are also an important signal to individuals and industry that a country takes intellectual property enforcement seriously, which we in the industry know is a precursor to economic development and outside investment.

Mr. Kessler believes that Mr. Madison did not understand what he was doing or, at best, did not foresee the expense that patent litigation would involve in the 21st century. In fact, the founding fathers knew exactly what they were doing when writing the intellectual property clause into the U.S. Constitution. They were protecting the individual from the overwhelming power of large entities. They were enacting the very principles of American society for which we fought the Revolutionary War. Since 1790 the U.S. patent system has contributed to America becoming the most innovative society in the history of the world. Fundamentally changing the system in the ways suggested by Mr. Kessler would stifle that innovation.

Today I attended the an event on Intellectual Property and the US Economy which was held in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House grounds. The purpose of the event was to unveil a study — Intellectual Property and the U.S. Economy: Industries in Focus — prepared by the Economics and Statistics Administration and the United States Patent and Trademark Office. The study found that intellectual property intensive industries support at least 40 million jobs in the United States and contribute more than $5 trillion dollars to U.S. gross domestic product (GDP). That is to say that 27.7% of all jobs in the U.S. were either directly or indirectly attributable to IP-intensive industries, and the amount contributed to the U.S. economy represents a staggering 34.8% of GDP.

Protecting trade secrets is critically important if for no other reason than making sure that the time, money and energy you spend building your business is not wasted. If your employees could simply leave without having any contractual obligations that would prevent them from taking information, stealing employees away and/or soliciting your existing customers then they would be able to set up a business and compete with you for a fraction of what it cost you to do the same. After all, you were the one who spent the time and money for marketing to attract customers in the first place, and you were the one who spent the time and money necessary to train your employees. Without the cost of acquiring new customers and the costs associated with training employees that new business set up by your former employee would compete with you and have only a fraction of the start-up and overhead costs you faced. That can make it difficult for any business to keep the doors open.

As far as I can tell none of these goals is forwarded by the sale of computers to North Korea. Sure, North Korea is the exact type of country that WIPO has historically sought to help. Not because they are a rogue nation, aspire to have a clandestine nuclear program or because they support terrorism, but rather because the people of North Korea suffer so much and there is so little economic activity that it is misleading to even call what they have an economy. Such horribly mismanaged countries is where WIPO has done its best work, to encourage the adoption and respect of IP rights, which leads to international investment and economic development.