WIPO SMEs Newsletter March 2011

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 SMEs Division of WIPO is offering the Training of Trainers (TOT) Program in those countries that have translated and/or adapted the basic materials on IP for Business published by the Division and are with the objective of creating a critical mass of trainers in the country who have the basic knowledge, skills and experience to provide preliminary IP assistance to SMEs on effective IP asset management. For more details, please see here.

  

International patent filings under WIPO's Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) increased by 4.8% in 2010, with strong growth from China (+56.2%), the Republic of Korea (+20.5%), and Japan (+7.9%), offsetting a mixed performance in European countries and a continued decline in the United States (-1.7%). Provisional data indicates that 162,900 1 international patent applications were filed in 2010 as compared to the 155,398 applications filed in 2009 (annex 1).

The Sixth Global Congress on Combating Counterfeiting and Piracy was held on February 2-3, 2011 in Paris under the patronage of the President of the French Republic to address the serious global impact of the growing trade in counterfeit and pirated goods and the need to build respect for intellectual property in a balanced and sustainable way. There were over 800 delegates from intergovernmental organizations, national governments, enforcement agencies and business from more than 100 countries. It was hosted by France’s Industrial Property Office (INPI) and chaired by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).

President Obamaof U.S.A. issued an Executive Order called " The Establishment of the Intellectual Property Enforcement Advisory Committees," establishing two intellectual property enforcement advisory committees designed to improve the U.S. Federal Government’s intellectual property enforcement efforts. The committees established by this Executive Order will encourage innovation by focusing and intensifying the U.S. administration’s efforts to combat intellectual property theft in the United States and abroad. 

  

As done last year, WIPO is this year organizing the International Certificate Course on IPRs & Business based on IP PANORAMA multimedia toolkit in English, in cooperation with the Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO), the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) and the Korea Invention Promotion Association (KIPA). This course will consist of the following three components: 1) Online course; 2) IP essay test; and 3) Offline course. The Online course, based on twelve modules of IP PANORAMA, through the KIPA e-learning website (http://global.ipacademy.net) will be organized three times: tentatively, the first session from April 2 to May 11, 2011; the second one from May 14 to June 22, 2011; and the third one from June 25 to August 2, 2011. Registration of the Online course will be free and open to all people who want to upgrade or polish his/her knowledge on IP, especially in business perspective. More details of this course will be updated soon through the IP PANORAMA portal website (http://www.ippanorama.com). Participants to the Offline course will be selected out of qualified students who would have completed both the Online course and the IP essay test.

The European Patent Office (EPO) is hosting workshops at its four main offices during May & June, with a selection of topics from over 50 teaching hours of its recently updated ip4inno teaching materials and is inviting to trial much of this new material before attending the workshops. For more details, please see here.

This is a distance learning courses on various IP issues, which is provided in French by the Public Research Center of Henri Tudor, Luxembourg, with financial support from the European Commission.

The IP PANORAMA ™ multimedia toolkit is now available in English, Arabic, Thai and Hungarian through the SMEs Division’s website. The English and Arabic versions are also available on CD-ROM on request. The learning points (in English) of theIP PANORAMA ™ multimedia toolkit have recently been uploaded as pdf format files on the website, which are also available as a separate book. Anyone interested in receiving a free copy of the CD-ROM and/or book containing the learning points may send an email to sme@wipo.int providing full postal address, including telephone number, and the purpose for which the CD-ROM/book would be used.

During this year, we expect to have more language versions of IP PANORAMA including the French, Spanish, Kiswahili, Vietnamese and Russian.

  

Companies sometimes overlook trade secrets as intellectual property assets because both their creation and continued existence depend upon secrecy. Unlike patents, copyrights or trademarks, trade secrets are not publicly recognized or registered with the government. This paper, published by Fenwick & West LLP, presents some practical guidance to companies on how to protect their trade secret more efficiently as intellectual property assets in business.

For more information on trade secret protection, see also the following links: What is a Trade Secret?; Trade Secrets: Policy Framework and Best Practices; Trade Secrets are Gold Nuggets: Protect them; Trade Secrets and Employee Loyalty; and, Overview of International Trade Secret Protection.

This paper presents the results of a pan-Nordic study to explore how small and medium-size enterprises use IPR. This study focuses particularly on patenting, based on the common approach linking national business registries with patent applicants to better understand how different types of firms use the IPR systems and how ‘achievement levels’ vary. It shows that most applications filed by Nordic firms at the EPO involve large firms, but that also a large group of applications originate in the region’s smallest firms.

From pages 53 to 63 RPX Corp describes its business model where they acquire patents that are or may be asserted against their clients and license them to their clients so as to protect them from patent litigation.  They don’t initiate patent litigation.  The description includes a background to patent monetization, etc.

This article, written by Andreas Rühmkorf , analyses the recent High Court decision of England in L’Oréal v eBay, which is part of a Europe-wide string of cases initiated by L’Oréal against the online auction portal. The article focuses on the contentious questions of law which Mr. Justice Arnold has referred to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) for clarification.

For more information on this issue, see also the following link: eBay wins UK court battle with L'Oreal; and, Advocate General: keyword advertising by eBay does not constitute a trademark infringement.

This report was prepared by Apax Partners with the help of the Economist Intelligence Unit to inspire a deeper understanding of this critical area of technology transfer by examining the enablers and hallmarks of best practice in technology transfer in five countries-France, Germany, Israel, the UK and the US.

For more information on technology transfer, see also the following links: Exchanging Value - Negotiating Technology Licensing Agreements - A Training Manual; Technology Transfer, Intellectual Property Rights and University-Industry Partnerships: The Experience of China, India, Japan, Philippines, the Republic of Korea, Singapore and Thailand ; Developing University-Industry Technology Transfer; and, Technology Transfer Principle & Strategy

This study, written by John H. Barton, Professor of Standford Law School with the support of the ICTSD Programme on Intellectual Property Rights and Sustainable Development, addresses the issue of new trends in technology transfer and their implications for national and international policy. The objective of the study is to explore how technology is transferred to developing countries and barriers that affect its transfer. To this end, it identifies policy approaches that might be of assistance in overcoming such barriers by addressing the flow of human resources, the flow of public-sector technology support, and the flow of private technology embodied in goods and services.

  

WIPO Regional Training of Trainers Program for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs) Support Institutions, March 7-10, 2011, Colombo, Sri Lanka

WIPO Training of Trainers Program on Effective Intellectual Property Asset Management by Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises, April 10-14, 2011, Doha, Qatar

WIPO Workshop for Mediators, May 30-31, 2011, Geneva, Switzerland

The significant time and cost that can be associated with court proceedings are increasingly causing parties to look for alternative ways of settling their disputes.  Mediation is an extension of direct negotiations between the parties to a dispute, conducted with the aid of a neutral intermediary, the mediator.  It is the preferred mode of dispute resolution in many of the most important markets of Asia, as well as an increasingly popular method of dispute settlement in the United States of America and in Europe.  As an international resource center in the area of intellectual property mediation and arbitration, the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center will offer a Workshop for Mediators in IP Disputes on Monday, May 30 and Tuesday, May 31, 2011 at the headquarters of WIPO in Geneva, Switzerland.  The Workshop is held in English and is designed for lawyers, business executives, patent and trademark specialists and others who wish to become familiar with the mediation process and receive training as mediators.  Taught by Professor Robert H. Mnookin of Harvard Law School and Professor Gary J. Friedman of the Center for Mediation in Law of Mill Valley, California, the program is based on simulated intellectual property mediation exercises.  

For more information of the Workshop, see here.

WIPO Training of Trainers Program on Effective Intellectual Property Asset Management by Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs), February 21-25, 2011, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia 

  

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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