Intellectual Property Law Commons^™

The Intellectual Property Hostage In Trade Retaliation, Sarah R. Wasserman Rajec

Sarah R. Wasserman Rajec

Intellectual property law has become bound up in a debate about appropriate remedies for violations of the World Trade Organization Agreement. As an alternative to traditional countermeasures that consist of retaliation under the violated agreement, the World Trade Organization ("WTO ") contemplates that violations of one of its covered agreements may be remedied through "cross-retaliation, " or retaliation under another agreement. One form of cross-retaliation has garnered interest in recent years: the threat to suspend intellectual property rights in response to unrelated trade violations

Cross-retaliation through intellectual property rights suspension is theoretically appealing for its potential to avoid problems inherent …

Infringement, Unbound, Sarah R. Wasserman Rajec

Sarah R. Wasserman Rajec

No abstract provided.

Free Trade In Patented Goods: International Exhaustion For Patents, Sarah R. Wasserman Rajec

Sarah R. Wasserman Rajec

Modern international trade law seeks to increase global welfare by lowering barriers to trade and encouraging international competition. This “free trade” approach, while originally applied to reduce tariffs on trade, has been extended to challenge non-tariff barriers, with modern trade agreements targeting telecommunication regulations, industrial and product safety standards, and intellectual property rules. Patent law, however, remains inconsistent with free-trade principles by allowing patent holders to subdivide the world market along national borders and to forbid trade in patented goods from one nation to another. This Article demonstrates that the doctrines thwarting free trade in patented goods are protectionist remnants …

Patents Absent Adversaries, Sarah R. Wasserman Rajec

Sarah R. Wasserman Rajec

No abstract provided.

Regulatory And Judicial Implementations Of Patent Law Flexibilities, Sarah R. Wasserman Rajec

Sarah R. Wasserman Rajec

No abstract provided.

The Jekyll And Hyde Story Of International Trade: The Supreme Court In Phrma V. Walsh And The Trips Agreement, Srividhya Ragavan

Srividhya Ragavan

No abstract provided.

Data Exclusivities In The Age Of Big Data, Biologics, And Plurilaterals, Peter K. Yu

Peter K. Yu

The past decade has seen many new developments impacting the intellectual property system. The introduction of big data analytics has transformed the fields of biotechnology and bioinformatics while ushering in major advances in drug development, clinical practices, and medical financing. The arrival of biologics and personalized medicines has also revolutionized the healthcare and pharmaceutical industries. In addition, the emergence of bilateral, regional, and plurilateral trade agreements have raised serious, and at times difficult, questions concerning the evolution of domestic and international intellectual property standards.

One topic linking all three developments together concerns the establishment of international standards to protect clinical …

Intellectual Property: A Beacon For Reform Of Investor-State Dispute Settlement,, Daniel Gervais

Daniel J Gervais

Three Questions That Will Make You Rethink The U.S.-China Intellectual Property Debate, 7 J. Marshall Rev. Intell. Prop. L. 412 (2008), Peter K. Yu

Peter K. Yu

Commentators have attributed China’s piracy and counterfeiting problems to the lack of political will on the part of Chinese authorities. They have also cited the many political, social, economic, cultural, judicial, and technological problems that have arisen as a result of the country’s rapid economic transformation and accession to the WTO. This provocative essay advances a third explanation. It argues that the failure to resolve piracy and counterfeiting problems in China can be partly attributed to the lack of political will on the part of U.S. policymakers and the American public to put intellectual property protection at the very top …

The International Enclosure Movement, Peter K. Yu

Peter K. Yu

Most of the recent intellectual property literature concerns the enclosure of the public domain or the one-way ratchet of intellectual property protection. While these concerns are significant and rightly placed, a different, and perhaps more important, enclosure movement is currently taking place at the international level. Instead of the public domain, this concurrent movement encloses the policy space of individual countries and requires them to adopt one-size-fits-all legal standards that ignore their local needs, national interests, technological capabilities, institutional capacities, and public health conditions. As a result of this enclosure, countries are forced to adopt inappropriate intellectual property systems, and …

The Trips Enforcement Dispute, Peter K. Yu

Peter K. Yu

2010 marks the fifteenth anniversary of the entering into force of the WTO TRIPS Agreement. When the Agreement was adopted, commentators quickly extolled the unprecedented benefits of having a set of multilateral enforcement norms built into the international intellectual property regime. Although intellectual property rights holders continue to rely on protection offered by the TRIPS Agreement, many of them have now become frustrated with the inadequacy of such protection. The agreement’s enforcement provisions, in particular, have been criticized as weak, primitive, and obsolete.

After more than a decade of implementation, these provisions finally became the subject of a dispute before …

The Global Intellectual Property Order And Its Undetermined Future, Peter K. Yu

Peter K. Yu

As an introduction to the inaugural issue of the new WIPO Journal, this essay highlights some of the key recent developments in the intellectual property field. The essay begins by discussing the increasingly complex, and at times incoherent, international legal order governing the protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights. It shows how much the system has been transformed since the launch of the Paris and Berne Conventions in the 1880s.

The essay then examines the increasingly polarized debate on intellectual property law and policy. Although the debate’s growing divisiveness is understandable, given the rapid expansion of intellectual property rights …

Trips Enforcement And Developing Countries, Peter K. Yu

Peter K. Yu

No abstract provided.

Taking Atrip Down Memory Lane, Peter K. Yu

Peter K. Yu

The International Association for the Advancement of Teaching and Research in Intellectual Property (ATRIP) was founded in Geneva in July 1981, with the support and assistance of the World Intellectual Property Organization. This professional academic association now includes hundreds of intellectual property professors and researchers from around the world. As the final contribution to the "ATRIP Passes 30" Symposium, which collects the reminiscences of the past and current ATRIP presidents, this short essay provides, in chronological order, some key information about all the pre-ATRIP Round Tables and ATRIP Congresses. This short history not only documents the historical origins, rapid growth …

Still Dissatisfied After All These Years: Intellectual Property, Post-Wto China, And The Avoidable Cycle Of Futility, Peter K. Yu

Peter K. Yu

No abstract provided.

From Pirates To Partners (Episode Ii): Protecting Intellectual Property In Post-Wto China, Peter K. Yu

Peter K. Yu

In "From Pirates to Partners: Protecting Intellectual Property in China in the Twenty-First Century," I criticized the ineffectiveness and short-sightedness of the American foreign intellectual property policy toward China. As I argued, the coercive approach taken by the U.S. administrations created a "cycle of futility" in which China and the United States repeatedly threatened each other with trade wars, only to back down in the eleventh hour with a compromise that did not provide sustained improvements in intellectual property protection.

Since I wrote that article five years ago, China has joined the WTO and undertook a complete overhaul of its …

Enforcement, Economics And Estimates, Peter K. Yu

Peter K. Yu

This article focuses on intellectual property enforcement, a topic that is of great importance to both developed and less developed countries. It begins by refuting the simple, and often politically motivated, claim that many countries fail to provide effective intellectual property enforcement by virtue of their lack of political will. Drawing on the latest economic literature, this article shows that high enforcement standards come with a hefty price tag and difficult trade-offs.

The article then outlines the challenges in measuring the cross-border economic impact of piracy and counterfeiting. As an illustration, the article discusses the ongoing effort by the US …

Acta And Its Complex Politics, Peter K. Yu

Peter K. Yu

Written for a special issue on the politics of intellectual property, this article examines the "country club" approach the negotiating parties of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) embraced to establish new and higher international intellectual property enforcement standards. It points out that the agreement is flawed not only because it is a country club agreement but also because it is a bad country club agreement.

The article then situates ACTA in the context of a recent trend of using bilateral, plurilateral and regional trade and investment agreements to circumvent the multilateral norm-setting process. It contends that this disturbing trend could …

Currents And Crosscurrents In The International Intellectual Property Regime, Peter K. Yu

Peter K. Yu

Since the establishment of the TRIPs Agreement, intellectual property protection has been expanding rapidly, and many less developed countries have become dissatisfied with the international intellectual property regime. From bilateral free trade agreements to the increasing use of technological protection measures, many commentators fear that the recent "one-way ratchet" will roll back the substantive and strategic gains made by less developed countries during the negotiation of the TRIPS Agreement. Interestingly, intellectual property rightsholders feel equally threatened by the recent developments, in particular the development of the Doha Declaration, the World Summit on the Information Society, the WIPO Development Agenda, and …

Thinking About The Trans-Pacific Partnership (And A Mega-Regional Agreement On Life Support), Peter K. Yu

Peter K. Yu

Commissioned for a conference on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) at VNU University of Economics & Law in Vietnam, this article provides a retrospective analysis of the partnership. It begins with a historical overview of the TPP. The article then examines the partnership’s status in light of the United States' withdrawal and contends that the TPP will exert considerable influence regardless of whether it is dead or alive.

The second half of this article identifies three interrelated but distinct aspects of the TPP: (1) as a TRIPS-plus intellectual property agreement; (2) as a regional investment agreement; and (3) as a plurilateral …

When The Chinese Intellectual Property System Hits 35, Peter K. Yu

Peter K. Yu

This article explores what it means for the Chinese intellectual property system to hit 35. It begins by briefly recapturing the system’s three phases of development. It discusses the system’s evolution from its birth all the way to the present. The article then explores three different meanings of a middle-aged Chinese intellectual property system – one for intellectual property reform, one for China, and one for the TRIPS Agreement and the global intellectual property community.

Crossfertilizing Isds With Trips, Peter K. Yu

Peter K. Yu

In the past few years, investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) has garnered considerable scholarly, policy and media attention. Such attention can be partly attributed to the negotiation of the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). It can also be attributed the growing use of ISDS to address international disputes involving intellectual property investments. Recent examples include Philip Morris’s now-failed attempts to challenge the tobacco control measures in Australia and Uruguay and Eli Lilly's equally unsuccessful effort to invalidate the patentability requirements in Canada.

Written for a symposium on investor-state arbitration, this article focuses on the growing use …

Ip Enforcement Under The Tpp: Civil And Administrative Procedures And Remedies, Provisional Measures In Tpp (Articles 18.71–18.76), J. Janewa Osei-Tutu

J. Janewa Osei-Tutu

No abstract provided.

Trade Secret Hacking, Online Data Breaches, And China's Cyberthreats, Peter K. Yu

Peter K. Yu

Online hacking from China, Iran, North Korea, Russia, and other parts of the world has caught the attention of U.S. policymakers, commentators, and the American public. For example, the discussion of the systematic attacks launched by potentially government-sponsored Chinese hackers reinforces the view that China is using all means necessary to compete against the United States. Most recently, the unprecedented cyberattack on Sony's movie studio also delayed and scaled back the nationwide theatrical release of the film The Interview. This attack led President Obama to call for greater cooperation between the government and the private sector to protect cybersecurity and …

Building Intellectual Property Coalitions For Development, Peter K. Yu

Peter K. Yu

The adoption of the WIPO Development Agenda in October 2007 has provided less developed countries with a rare and unprecedented opportunity to reshape the international intellectual property system in a way that would better advance their interests. However, if these countries are to succeed, they need to take advantage of the current momentum, coordinate better with other countries and nongovernmental organizations, and more actively share with others their experience, knowledge, and best practices.

Commissioned by the EDGE (Emerging Dynamic Global Economies) Network of the University of Ottawa, this paper begins by explaining how building intellectual property coalitions for development (IPC4D) …

The Existing Legal Infrastructure Of Brics: Where Have We Been And Where Are We Going, Robert B. Ahdieh, Zhu Lee, Srividhya Ragavan, Kevin Noonan, Clinton W. Francis

Robert B. Ahdieh

The focus of this panel is incrementally shifting from the previous panel. Whereas the previous was looking at public/private issues and issues relating to incentivizing innovation in the subject countries, we're going to take a focus more on, I think it's safe to say, from an external perspective looking at these countries and issues that are confronted by businesses who our either planning to deal with the four subject countries or are concerned about their technologies being used in their four subject countries.

We have four panelists, and each of them is going to speak to one of the four …

Geographical Indications Between Trade, Development, Culture, And Marketing: Framing A Fair(Er) System Of Protection In The Global Economy?, Irene Calboli

Irene Calboli

This chapter analyzes some of the topics on the current debate involving geographical indications (GIs) of origin that will be further elaborated by the contributors to this volume from a variety of perspectives and angles. As the title indicates, this volume focuses on GI protection “at the crossroads of trade, development, and culture,” with a specific focus on the countries in the Asia-Pacific region. This choice is due primarily to the fact that the analysis of issues related to GI protection in this region is, to date, not as extensive as the analysis in other regions, particularly in the Western …

Justifying India's Patent Position To The United States International Trade Commission And Office Of The United States Trade Representative, Srividhya Ragavan, Sean Flynn, Brook Baker

Srividhya Ragavan

The paper below largely is an extract of the testimonial filed by the authors to the Secretary of the ITC in response to the Notice on the Federal Register dated August 29, 2013 titled Trade, Investment, and Industrial Policies in India: Effects on the U.S. Economy. Where required, the paper also draws from the written submissions that the authors made to the United States Trade Representative’s (hereinafter, USTR) office on the related question of whether India deny adequate and effective protection of intellectual property rights or deny fair and equitable market access to U.S. persons who rely on intellectual property …

U.S. Patent Extraterritoriality Within The International Context, Amy L. Landers

Amy L. Landers

Brief For Amicus Curiae Law Professors And Scholars In Support Of Apellee, In Authors Guild V. Google, Inc., Michael W. Carroll, Brandon Butler, Meredith Jacob

Michael W. Carroll

No abstract provided.