WIPO SMEs Newsletter December 2009

WIPO SMEs Newsletter is a monthly e-publication providing readers with useful intellectual property (IP) information contained in articles, case studies, forthcoming IP/SMEs relevant events, and published presentations featured on our web site. We hope you will find it useful and informative. We encourage you to share the newsletter or items of interest with friends and colleagues. For past issues and information on the activities of the SMEs Division, please visit http://www.wipo.int/sme.

The Government of Italy announced on December 10, 2009 that it will build on its extra-budgetary contributions to WIPO with an additional one million Euros. The announcement was made by Italy’s Secretary of State, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Vincenzo Scotti, and Mr. Giussepe Tripoli, Chief of Department, Ministry of Economic Development at an international convention in Rome, organized jointly by WIPO and Italy’s National Council for Economies and Labor (CNEL) with the participation of CNEL President Antonio Marzano and WIPO Director General Francis Gurry.  The Italian FIT program prioritizes the promotion of economic and commercial activities based on IP, the relationship between IP and technological development, the development of creative industries, the use of IP by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), the protection of geographical indications (GIs), industrial designs, IP training, and the fight against counterfeiting and audiovisual piracy. Part of the funds will support the development of an IP-Based Entrepreneurship Development Program, an interdisciplinary pilot training program which would initially be hosted by an Italian University. The funds would also support programs to stimulate the use of the IP system by SMEs in specific sectors, such as IT, software, biotechnology, textiles, agribusiness, and tourism.

http://www.wipo.int/sme/en/documents/pdf/intellectual_property_management.pdf

 

We have received many useful inputs from a number of our readers. We are still open to have your comments/suggestions on the proposed table of contents of the collaborative book project that WIPO has launched. All institutions or/and individuals interested in providing inputs for or collaborating with WIPO in this book project may kindly e-mail the Director, SMEs Division at guriqbal.jaiya@wipo.int

 

From Monday, December 14, 2009, the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center will launch essentially paperless UDRP procedures. This removes the requirement for mandatory filing and notification of paper pleadings in WIPO cases filed under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP). 

This latest development of the UDRP is expected to substantially improve the efficiency of the mechanism by reducing the time and cost involved in submitting WIPO UDRP filings and to save up to one million pages of paper filed per year making it a greener and largely paperless procedure. While this leaner, more efficient procedure will become mandatory from March 1, 2010, ICANN in an announcement dated December 7, 2009, has signaled that UDRP providers may begin accepting electronic filings with immediate effect as long as parties also have the option of submitting hard copies.     

83 national IP offices have responded to a needs assessment questionnaire distributed by WIPO. 

ROSPATENT, with the support of WIPO, has published the Russian customization of three WIPO guides entitled, “ Making a Mark ”, “ Looking Good ” and “ Inventing the Future ”.

The Patent Office from the Republic of Bulgaria, with the support of WIPO, has published the Bulgarian customization of the WIPO guides entitled, “ Making a Mark” and “ Looking Good”. 

The Patent Office from the Republic of Bulgaria, with the support of WIPO, has published the Bulgarian translation of the WIPO guide entitled, “ Stitch in Time”.

The translation and/or customization of the publications of SMEs Division may be authorized as per the outlined procedures.  An interested party may send a communication to Mr. Guriqbal Singh Jaiya, Director, SMEs Division by email at guriqbal.jaiya@wipo.int.   Technical and financial assistance would be offered to credible proposals received from national IP offices, copyright administrations, and SME support institutions.  Preference would be given to proposals received from institutions in developing and Least Developed Countries (LDCs) as well as countries-in-transition to a market-oriented economy in Europe and Asia.  Other examples of national translations and/or customizations may be seen here .  

United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) provides an IP management course under the e-Biosafety Training Programme.

This paper discusses IP management in different development stages and different technological fields by choosing four IT (information technology) enterprises (Huawei, ZTE, Netac and Tencent) in Shenzhen of China. 

Karel R. Schubert, Vice President, Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, provides examples of the Danforth Center’s best practices concerning  the protection and sharing of intellectual property rights, the reservation of rights for humanitarian projects, and best practices to enhance and maximize value creation through technology licensing.

 

Competitive intelligence (CI) professionals must play both offense and defense roles in order to gather useful information in an ethical manner while simultaneously protecting their own companies from disclosing sensitive information. This article addresses some best practices in this regard.  

How the Hong Kong Government’s Business Guidance Policy on IP Is Developing by Stephen Selby

This article shows how a chief security officer, working with his or her counsel, can conduct an investigation of a suspected phone of an employee especially if the phone is provided by the employer.

Swiss legislature has established in statutory law for the first time the principle of regional exhaustion for the re-import of patent protected goods from the territory of the European Economic Region (EER).

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office announced rules, in a Federal Register notice published and effective on December 8, 2009, for implementing its previously-announced pilot program in which an applicant may petition to have an application involving green technologies advanced out of turn without meeting all of the requirements of the existing accelerated examination program such as examination support documents.

The SMEs Division welcomes voluntary contributions of articles, case studies, news items, useful links and relevant information concerning forthcoming events of interest to entrepreneurs and SMEs for inclusion in future issues of this newsletter; contributions may be sent by email to sme@wipo.int.

 

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The past issues of this newsletter, since August 2001, may be accessed here.

Copyright (c) 2009 World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), 34, chemin des Colombettes, 1211 Geneva, Switzerland