WIPO SMEs Newsletter August 2012

 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 Section, please visit http://www.wipo.int/sme. 

In order to further improve our responsiveness to all our stakeholders, WIPO is now providing round-the-clock customer service. From August 14, 2012, all calls made to the WIPO switchboard (+41 22 338 9111) outside our Geneva working hours (Monday to Friday; 08.00 – 18.00 CET) will automatically be redirected to one of the WIPO external offices in Tokyo, Singapore, Rio de Janeiro, or New York. Multilingual staff in these offices will provide first line assistance and will ensure that the inquiry is followed up by the relevant division in our Geneva headquarters.

The round-the-clock call-answering service enhances the existing services offered by a dedicated team in Geneva – the Customer Service Center – which was launched in October 2010. The Customer Service Center responds to general questions by telephone or email; receives customer feedback; and channels specific enquiries to the most appropriate specialized WIPO information service or individual expert.

This service complements a number of other specialized information lines, available via the contact us page on the WIPO website. Our drive to improve responsiveness to all our customers – including member states, users of the WIPO services and the general public - is among the objectives of the Strategic Realignment Program, which highlights service orientation as one of WIPO’s four core values.

 

 

 

The World Intellectual Property Organization’s (WIPO) 2012 IP Facts and Figures provides an overview of IP activity based on the latest available year of statistics. Due to the time involved in collecting and reporting statistics to WIPO, most national and regional IP office statistics refer to 2010. This publication covers four types of industrial property – patents, utility models, trademarks and industrial designs.

  

The SMEs Section of WIPO supports the organization of national Training of Trainers (TOT) Programs in countries that have translated and/or adapted the basic materials on IP for Business published by the Section. The objective of the TOTs is to create a critical mass of trainers in the country with enough knowledge and skills to provide assistance to SMEs on effective IP asset management at a basic level. For more details, please see here.

The IP PANORAMA ™ multimedia toolkit is now available in English, French, Spanish, Arabic, Hungarian, Vietnamese and Thai versions on or through the pages at http://www.wipo.int/sme/en/multimedia/ and http://www.ippanorama.com/. CD-ROMs of the English, Arabic, French and Spanish versions are also available on request. Anyone interested in receiving a free copy of the CD-ROM may email sme@wipo.int , providing the full postal address, including telephone number, and indicating the purpose for which the CD-ROM would be used.     

This study assesses the impact of patents on innovation in the Australian medical biotechnology industry, based on surveys which were mailed to three industry sectors: research institutions, public and private biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies, and diagnostic facilities. Forty semi-structured interviews were undertaken with participants in all of these sectors. One of the main conclusions of this study is that at present the medical biotechnology industry is enjoying the advantages that the patent system offers in encouraging innovation. This does not necessarily mean that the patent system is working perfectly, and consideration of changes to further increase its benefits is warranted.

This booklet forms part of our Intellectual Property (IP) Healthcheck series of the U.K. Intellectual Property Office, a suite of booklets and online tools for business which have been developed to help you identify your intellectual assets and advise you how best to exploit and protect them.This booklet therefore provides information on the options for users and right holders in relation to ADR and the court system. It further helps users of IP, in particular businesses, to understand and implement measures to prevent and tackle any instances of IP rights infringement and so avoid possible legal, IT security and reputational risks. The booklet explains where IP infringement may become a criminal offence and where Trading Standards Offices may be able to take action.

The creation and dissemination of knowledge is at the heart of every university activity. The challenge is realizing how this knowledge can best be utilized as an asset that can provide the maximum value to the economy, society and the university itself. Many universities are now fully aware of how to commercialize the IP arising from their research base. This Guide, published by the U.K. Intellectual Property Office, is for vice-chancellors, senior decision makers and senior managers in universities and is intended to help them set strategies to optimize the benefits from the intellectual assets created by their staff and students.

The European Commission adopted a proposal for a directive on collective rights management and multi-territorial licensing of rights in musical works for online uses. The proposal aims at ensuring that rightholders have a say in the management of their rights and envisages better functioning collecting societies as a result of the set standards all over Europe. The proposed directive will also ease the licensing of authors' rights for the use of music on the Internet. This should lead to improved access to and more offer of music online.

Research for SMEs and Research for SME Associations are two dedicated initiatives of the European Commision to strengthen the innovation capacities of SMEs by providing the support they need to outsource research critical to their core business. This brochure conveniently spells out how these initiatives are designed, and explains in plain terms how the funding model works in practice.  

 

Arbitration is a procedure in which a dispute is submitted, by agreement of the parties, to one or more arbitrators who make a binding decision on the dispute.  In choosing arbitration, the parties opt for a private dispute resolution procedure instead of going to court.  The WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center will offer an Arbitration Workshop in Singapore, on Thursday, October 18 and Friday, October 19, 2012.  This Workshop will provide intensive basic training of a practical nature for party representatives in arbitration and for arbitrators, as well as others wishing to familiarize themselves with the international arbitration process.  The training, which will be conducted by experienced international arbitrators, will focus on the main principles of international commercial arbitration lawand practice, with particular reference to the practical application of the WIPO Arbitration and Expedited Arbitration Rules in intellectual property and technology disputes. 

Further information is available at http://www.wipo.int/amc/en/events/

The SMEs Section 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.

If you have received this newsletter from someone and would like to subscribe yourself, then simply send an e-mail to sme@wipo.int with "subscribe" as the subject, and indicate your language preference (English, French, Spanish, Arabic, Chinese or Russian).

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

Copyright (c) 2012 World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), 34, chemin des Colombettes, 1211 Geneva, Switzerland