While the specifics are still under consideration, a leadership committee to explore in-depth reforms has approved a resolution regarding establishing a specialized intellectual property court in June.
China already has specialized courts, such as those handling railroad transportation or military matters.
Various proposals regarding the locations and jurisdictions of such an IP court system have long been under discussion. This is a firm indication that the Chinese government is going in this direction.
Busan, Korea, 5 June 2014 - The European Patent Office and
the State Intellectual Property Office of the People’s Republic of China announced the launch of a new EPO service, called the Global Dossier, that
displays European and Chinese dossier content on a family of patent applications
(applications for the same invention filed at multiple offices).
This is probably the first of many joint services comoing out of the Global Dossier Task Force created at the 5th IP5 Heads Meeting in June 2012. This Task Force comprises not only the IP5 offices, but also industry representatives from these jurisdictions (see http://www.fiveipoffices.org/activities/globaldossier.html)
On June 6, the Legislative Affairs Office of the PRC State Council published a new draft of the Copyright Law for public commenting. The draft law is available at:
http://www.chinalaw.gov.cn/article/cazjgg/201406/20140600396188.shtml
According to various reports, the major changes will include, among other things:
–Consolidating the current 17 protected rights into 13 rights
–Increased penalties for infringing acts
–applied artistic work will be protected for 25 years
Deadline for comment submission is July 5, 2014
There are two pending bills before the Canadian Parliament to amend the Canadian Trade-marks Act.
Those interested in following the changes should contact the Canadian Bar Association for more information. Recent comments from the Canadian Bar Association can be found at:
http://www.cba.org/CBA/submissions/pdf/14-23-eng.pdf
Bill C-8, which was the first attempt at legislative reform, is available at http://www.parl.gc.ca/LEGISinfo/BillDetails.aspx?Language=E&Mode=1&billId=6266835&View=0
Bill C-31 is available at http://www.parl.gc.ca/LegisInfo/BillDetails.aspx?Language=E&Mode=1&billId=6483626
The latest decision was handed down on June 2, 2014, in the case of Limelight Networks, Inc v. Akamai Technologies, Inc. Justice Alito wrote unanimous opinion of the Court stating that a defendant is not liable for inducing patent infringement when there has been no direct infringement. Without going into the details of the case, the opinion seems to confirm common sense (not always the case for legal opinion): there should be no crime if the actual act did not happen; the thought or the plan to commit a crime is not a substitute for the crime. Of course, I understand that patent law is in the realm of civil cases….
Full Text of the opinion is available at http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/13pdf/12-786_664d.pdf
and as usual a variety of new products are on display. The June 3rd high level forum featuring speakers from MediaTek, Acer, Amazon, and ARM focused on cloud computing and the Internet of Things. The group seems to agree that the new age of the Internet of Things ( IoT or 物联网) has arrived. However, the real killer applications of this Internet 2.0 have yet to emerge.
The speakers, on the other hand, seem to have divergent opinions on the infrastructure of the Cloud: should the resources for the Cloud be individualized (Acer approach), or should the resources be provided by one company (namely Amazon)?
Pro-business Narendra Modi swept into victory in May, and is expected to improve trade ties between the US and India. While no specifics on his IP future plan have been announced, the following article outlines some of the possible benefits on the intellectual property front:
http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2014/05/16/india-election-what-narendra-modis-victory-means-for-the-u-s-economy/
There is also a timely ABA event organized by the International Law Section of the American Bar Association on how the recent election is likely to impact business climate in India.
http://shop.americanbar.org/ebus/ABAEventsCalendar/EventDetails.aspx?productId=128812530
Let’s hope Modi will fulfill his promise on brining a brighter economic future for India.
China finally allowed for the protection of graphical user interface under design patents.
The changes were made to the SIPO’s Examination Guidelines, and the order officially allowing the changes, including the changes themselves, is avaialble at
http://211.157.104.86:8080/ogic/view/govinfo!detail.jhtml?id=1976
The changes are effective May 1, 2014