Marc Morgan > News
Many nations across the world permit compulsory licensing of patents for a variety of reasons. In some cases to address the failure of a patent holder to... Read More »
Microsoft to acquire Skype.
Any company worth a hoot these days has to begin giving consideration to protecting their intellectual property within China. Patent applications filed last year in... Read More »
Comments
Marc MorganThanks for the thoughtful and insightful response Dan A. "Your point is taken on reciprocal rights". Really what I should have said, is just that there is an element of give and take in international politics. Steps by China towards stronger recognition of IP rights may result in other countries making concessions, not necessarily pertaining to intellectual property,that can be beneficial to Chinese businesses.
May 26, 2011
Dan AInteresting statistics!
The increase in filing by Chinese companies is in large part driven by significant subsidies given by the Chinese government to Chinese companies which file patents.
For Chinese companies obtaining a Chinese patent is certainly very cheap. For foreign companies I think China can be more expensive than the US due to translation costs. Depends on how you manage the filing and prosecution and which firm you use. Litigation is much cheaper.
In my opinion the weakness in enforcement is not so much the factors you mention, but the practical difficulties of actually enforcing a judgment after it is given by the court. Damages of any significant level are very difficult or impossible for foreign companies to achieve.
I am not quite sure what you mean by the Chinese government having an incentive to improve matters in order to secure reciprocal rights. Most reciprocal rights are already guaranteed by international conventions such as TRIPs which China is already a party to.
May 24, 2011
SEB S.A. v. Montgomery Ward & Co., Inc., 594 F.3d 1360 (Fed. Cir. 2010) has served to confuse the state of the law pertaining to induced infringement. The SEB... Read More »
Should tax strategy patents be banned? If the Patent Reform Act of 2011 is approved, a ban on tax strategy patents will no longer be a discuss point, it will be law... Read More »
Comprehensive patent reform legislation will be appearing for the third time before the full senate since 2008. A unanimous vote by the Senate Judiciary Committee on... Read More »
Patent validity opinions from Attorneys can be useful and are sometimes necessary when evaluating whether a technology or a process of a technology violates a patent. ... Read More »
On July 28th of 2010, in Sun Pharmaceuticals v. Eli Lilly, the Federal Circuit Court of Appeal affirmed a district court's decision that the claims of US Patent... Read More »
There is no disputing the ever growing importance of intellectual property portfolios to business. In the world of today there exist many industries where Intellectual... Read More »
In fishing location and timing can be the difference between hooking or not hooking the big one. Skyhook Wireless Inc. may have gotten both location and timing right in... Read More »
On June 28 2010, the US Supreme Court issued its opinion in Bilski v. Kappos, which is an important opinion on the issue of the patentability of business methods. In the ... Read More »
Recently there has been a lot of debate within the intellectual property industry about reforming the inequitable conduct defense. This debate has now moved from social... Read More »
The time has come for companies to find more innovative ways to avoid disputes over intellectual property. Everything is upside down and wrong way around in the... Read More »