Patent Trolls: Legit Enforcers or Harrassers?

Since the turn of the century, \u27patent trolls\u27 have emerged as one of the most topical debates among patent holders. However, nearly ten years later, stakeholders are still unable to reach consensus as to the \u27right\u27 or \u27wrong\u27 of \u27trolls\u27. Against this backdrop, our debates open with the landmark case of Blackberry between RIM and NTP to provide thoughts as to whether NTP is considered a troll. Then there is a focus on some conceptual issues surrounding \u27patent trolls\u27, and its origin citing relevant mini-cases. This column also lays out the fierce arguments for or against patent trolling among scholars and practitioners and reasoning for the trolling existence. The debates end with some reflections on the implication of patent trolling phenomenon on patent systems, particularly the US structure, subsequently, proposing some relevant solutions

Patent System Measurements: Review, Critique and Proposal

This paper reviews and critiques existing literature on means of patent system measurement across countries and accordingly proposes an integrated framework to advance this under-studied area by considering the impact of international organizations. The literature review reveals that studies have been conducted to measure patent systems across the world in diversely conceptual, empirical and methodological manners. The paper discusses all these differences and reveals their strengths and weaknesses. The proposed conceptual framework consists of three components: patent mechanism (e.g. patent laws), patent administration (e.g. patent filing and grant) and patent enforcement (e.g. judicial dispute resolution). The initial testing of this framework seems to show valid results and paves the way for further examination. This paper makes two main contributions: establishing a comprehensive framework to allow cross-country comparisons by firms and policy makers, and helping an effective process of patent commercialization through a critical understanding of strategic patent environment, thus allowing strategic decisions to be made to generate value from patents

Software Protection: Copyrightability vs Patentability?

The moment software was created was also the starting point of heated debates over software protection. During the early stages of protection, the debate was around the copyrightability of software protection. Nowadays, the focal point is the argument on whether software should be solely protected under copyright or dually guarded by both copyright and patent. With the development of the software industry across the world, this issue has become more and more contentious internationally. This column of Global IP Debate opens with a software patent case and an open source case, and then traces the history of software protection to examine its protective evolvement. It next focuses on the currently heated debate of dual protection on software by laying out both sides of the arguments and reasoning. This debate ends with some possible solutions to engage readers\u27 thoughts

Compulsory Licensing: For Better or For Worse, the Done Deal Lies in the Balance

Ever since compulsory licensing has emerged as a statutory obligation, it has been debated around the balance of interests between the general public and IP right holders. After opening two cases relevant and typical to the debate, this column clarifies compulsory licensing within the licensing contexts, and gives a brief account of its history. The focal point then centers on the main issues of compulsory licensing grants for national emergency, non-working, anti-competitive practice, non-commercial use and relevant international issues. In the end, some potential solutions are proposed

Colour Markability: Registrable in a Few Nations, but Debatable Among Many!

Colour marks have been equally debatable before and after they became registrable in few countries. Before some landmark cases set the broad legal framework for colour mark protection, debates centred on the registrability. Nowadays, registrability remains an issue, but heightened debates have been surrounding the conditions and interpretations of this non-traditional mark. With the increasing importance of marks for businesses and organizations, colour mark issues have become internationally controversial. This Global IP debate thus, opens with two landmark cases: Qualitex v Jacobson and BP v Woolworths. It then focuses on some conceptual issues relevant to the colour mark itself, its origin with relevant exemplar cases and historical evolvement, to enrich the legal framework and accumulate case experience to resolve colour mark disputes. Next, this column discusses the debates for or against colour mark registrations by drawing arguments and reasoning from scholars and practitioners. The debate ends with some reflections and a possible solution

Conceptual Issues of Global Counterfeiting on Products and Services

Counterfeiting is a global problem of enormous magnitude. Despite its obvious importance, relatively little attention has been paid to the management of counterfeiting. This paper considers the difficulties of measuring counterfeiting and provides evidence of the magnitude of the problem worldwide. The focus is on counterfeiting of privately produced goods and services, rather than the issue of the counterfeiting of currency per se, which is a somewhat different though related issue. A conceptual framework of the private and social costs and benefits of anti-counterfeiting measures is also provided. The framework highlights a number of key driving forces of counterfeiting, including existence of unsatisfied demand at the prevailing prices – a demand that is fueled by advertising and other promotional activities. The paper draws on a range of conceptual and empirical work to develop an agenda of items for company policy maker

Recomposing of Industrial Supply Chain and Constructing of Digital CBD

Drawing lessons from the development of cities at home and abroad success and lost experience, through practice research, this paper systemically analysis the evolution of urban economy space. In the scope of global industrial supply chain’s recomposing, it is discusses that modern city’s function structure characteristic, focusing “integrative logistics management service”. According to Dalian’s geography and resource advantage in district industry supply chain, this paper also proposes the digital CBD planning of Dalian which focuses integrative logistics management service

Integration and Divergence of Patent Systems across National and International Institutions

Based on a framework grounded in the institution-based view, this paper addresses the extent of global patent system integration and development. Our findings suggest that nations’ patent systems have yet ‘met’ the ‘international standards’, despite national and international endeavor toward this goal. The impact of international institutions on national institutions is reflected in the process rather than the outcome. Among the three components of patent systems across 88 nations, conformity is the strongest for ‘patent mechanism\u27, operations is the most diverse for ‘patent administration’ and ‘patent enforcement’ does not form a cross-nation divide due to most nations being moderate enforcers

Plant and Animal Responses to Different Grazing Regimes on a Meadow Steppe in Northeast China

Grazing by domestic herbivores is often considered to be an essential factor governing grassland vegetation and animal production (Hodgson and Illius 1996). During recent decades, there is increasing interest as a fundamental interaction between plant-animal interface, especially for the simultaneous or interactive responses of plants and animals to grassland grazing regimes (Liu et al., 2015), which benefits on improving the efficiency of grazing or grassland resource management. To achieve sustainable animal productivity and maintain the stability of grasslands, farmers or stakeholders need to employ optimal grazing strategies or regimes based on practical grassland vegetation and environments. Unfortunately, up to date it remains unclear what grazing regime will favour animal production, and mitigate the grassland degradation resulted from long-term free grazing in the eastern areas of the Eurasian Steppe. For this study, we conducted a five-year grazing experiment to test how grazing intensity (mediate and heavy) interact with resting to impact on the performance of plants and animals in a meadow steppe, and estimate the effects of designed grazing regime in this region