Debunking Intellectual Property Myths: Cross Cultural Experiments on Perceptions of Property

For decades, the prevailing view in the United States and many Western countries has been that China does not appropriately respect intellectual property rights. These beliefs lie at the heart of President Donald Trump’s current trade war with China. Despite substantial geopolitical debate over differences between American an d Chinese attitudes towards intellectual property rights, and despite the critical effects that such attitudes have on international economic markets and the function of intellectual property systems, empirical evidence of these attitudes is largely lacking. This Article presents original experimental survey research that explores cross cross-cultural differences between American and Chinese attitudes towards intellectual property rights, personal property rights, and real property rights. The results of the studies are somewhat counterintuitive. First, Chinese participants are found to have more consistent preferences towards different types of property rights than Americans. In a series of vignettes designed to test attitudes towards patented subject matter, copyrighted subject matter, tangible personal property, and real property, Chinese responses were more consistent and less context driven. Second, Americans do identify a preference for stronger intellectual property rights than Chinese, but only where infringement is committed by a private party for private benefit. Where infringement is conducted for public benefit, whether by a private or a governmental entity, Chinese and Americans tend to have the same attitudes towards intellectual property rights. Third , Americans display a lower regard for intellectual property rights than for tangible property rights in most contexts, a differential that is not echoed in Chinese responses. The distinctions that Americans draw based on the use to which property is put, and between intellectual property and tangible property, is not consistent with United States law. Our experiments reveal that the ongoing debates over Chinese attitudes towards intellectual property rights miss the mark in certain regards. Chinese and American preferences for property rights are more similar than most have assumed, and the manners in which they differ are inconsistent with most proffered theories. These results provide important lessons for the future of international intellectual property rights relations, discourse, and enforcement

Software Patents: What One-Click Buy and Safe Air Travel Have in Common

Have you ever sat in an airplane, typing on your laptop, when the darn thing crashes for the one-millionth time? Have you ever then thought about how the airplane you are sitting in is controlled by software, too--the technical term being fly by wire --and then started sweating uncontrollably? Software controls not only air traffic but plenty of other safety-critical technologies: the tightrope walk of controlling the chain reaction of radioactive elements in nuclear power plants; the navigation and activation of missiles;3 the moves and cutting-depth of a surgical laser when correcting eye-sights; the list goes on... With such reliance on software, malfunction due to errors in the program code becomes unacceptable. Software patents help heighten the standard by supporting the re-use of the code of established and tested systems

Will Sony’s Fourth Playstation Lead to a Second Sony v. Universal?

Sony has included a “share” button on the next version of their popular PlayStation video game system. This feature is meant to allow players to record and share videos of their gameplay. This service shares similarities with the controversial “record” button that Sony included with its Betamax players over thirty years ago. The Betamax player was the subject of the landmark case Sony v. Universal, a foundational case for the modern application of copyright law to new technology. This Issue Brief examines how this “share” feature would fare under the framework laid out by Sony v. Universal and other evolutions in copyright law

Will Sony’s Fourth Playstation Lead to a Second Sony v. Universal?

Sony has included a “share” button on the next version of their popular PlayStation video game system. This feature is meant to allow players to record and share videos of their gameplay. This service shares similarities with the controversial “record” button that Sony included with its Betamax players over thirty years ago. The Betamax player was the subject of the landmark case Sony v. Universal, a foundational case for the modern application of copyright law to new technology. This Issue Brief examines how this “share” feature would fare under the framework laid out by Sony v. Universal and other evolutions in copyright law

Intellectual Property’s Leviathan

Neoliberalism is a complex, multifaceted concept. As such, it offers many possible points of entry into my primary field of study, that of intellectual property (IP) law. We might begin by investigating tensions between IP law and a purely economic conception of neoliberalism, for example. Or we might consider whether or how IP law might be “insulated from democratic governance” while also being rapidly assembled. In these few pages, I want to focus instead on a different line of inquiry, one that reveals the powerful grip that one particular neoliberal conception has on our contemporary imaginary: the neoliberal conception of the state. Today, both those who defend robust private IP law and their most prominent critics, I will show, typically describe the state in its first instance as inertial, heavy, bureaucratic, ill-informed, and perilously corruptible and corrupt

Towards the development of the supply chain of concentrated solar power

This work focuses on the investigation into the planning of renewable energy power plants in Brazil using the Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) technology. The main aim of the paper is to present an analysis of the planning process that can be used as a basis of the development of a method to assess the Brazilian’s local manufacturing and supply chain capabilities in supporting the deployment of the CSP technology. The paper identifies areas in which the concerted efforts should be emphasized. For this, the paper will first discuss the key components of the chosen CSP technology (in this case the parabolic through). The manufacturing processes of these components will subsequently be analyzed and the key enabling technologies will be determined. The demands of electricity will be estimated using the System Advisory Model®, a modelling tool developed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). An assessment method will finally be proposed to identify the potentials of the local Brazilian supply chain, through the readiness evaluation of the key enabling technologies and manufacturing processes