全球新經濟時代來臨，廠商為提升本身之獲利能力及競爭力，逐漸將各類商業活動朝向國際化進行，研發活動國際化即是其中重要的一環。隨著智慧財產權保護意識高漲，地主國對智慧財產權保護程度，亦成為廠商進行海外研發活動考量因素之一。本研究以經濟部統計處2007年編製之「製造業對外投資實況調查」報告及Park（2008）所編製全球122個國家專利權指標數資料，利用Tobit模型進行迴歸實證分析，首先探討廠商特性及投資動機等因素對海外子公司研發的影響；其次進一步分析廠商特性及投資動機經由智慧財產權在不同程度之保護水準下，對海外子公司研發之影響。研究結果發現，「廠商規模」、「產業別」、「海外事業營業額比重」、「當地市場發展潛力大」及「利用當地價廉勞工」為影響影響海外子公司研發配置之重要因素；另就「智慧財產權」單一因素而言，並不影響海外研發配置之決策，惟「廠商規模」、「產業別」在經由地主國智慧財產權保護程度愈高下，對海外子公司研發配置有重要影響。

Abstract The relationships between software producing companies, their customers and other parties involved have growing importance in the turbulent and fast developing business environment of today. The software industry itself is characterized by the Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS), tailored, and Modified-Off-The-Shelf (MOTS) businesses modes. In this versatile context of cooperation, financing and acquisitions demand exact details of the ownership of the products, i.e. the Intellectual Property Rights of these products and services. Legal forms and contracting procedures are emerging as the critical issues for the development of the information technology industry. This study addresses the problem of how software contracting has been approached and what concepts and models have been presented to understand it. Further, the question of the role of inter-organisational relationships (business-to-business) and intra-organisational process evolution in software contracting is discussed. The domains of interest and of relevance in this research are software development process, business process, legal process, and the contracting process itself, and the evolving interaction between these processes. The focus of this study is especially on contracting and on analysing the process of contracting, i.e. the dynamics, dependencies and elements of process related issues. The empirical part of the study was completed by analysing twelve software producing companies - eight were Finnish firms established in Silicon Valley (USA) and the rest were local Finnish firms with international operations. Based on the empirical findings, a software-contracting model was elaborated to describe how the contracting processes form and evolve in the context of software business. The model gives more understanding of the evolving contract processes and relationships. Further, the research produced concepts of how to manage contracting processes in the software business. Contributions of this study are, first, the well-defined model for contracting process in a software developing company. The elaborated model gives new insight into the elements, interrelationships and governance structures included in the contracting process and the relationship development between cooperating companies. Software companies can compare their contractual situation with the model. This enables them to develop their own processes further to respond to the present-day requirements. Secondly, the study specifies and introduces three different generic contracting networks for COTS, tailored, and MOTS business modes of software developing companies. It was established that these three business modes have similarities as well as differences in the application of software contracting processes. The COTS business relied firmly on multiform licensing practices, whereas the tailored business saw the framework contract as the main contractual tool and interestingly the MOTS business employed combinations of these two previous forms, i.e. both licensing and framework contracts. This study evoked some interesting future research prospects. In order to create a more accurate overall view of the whole contracting process the research should be continued and take the interplay of both customer and supplier under closer scrutiny. Another important issue would be to examine the contracts used in these different business modes from a strict legal viewpoint and the possible transformation of the predominant legal practices.

No description available.

The research aims at reviewing how mobile phone producers in the EU are approaching individual obsolete phone collection from private households in terms of the information provided on their websites, in addition to the collective schemes that they may be part of for complying with the WEEE Directive. In this study, competitive benchmarking was used to differentiate the accessibility level of take-back offers among the selected producers. The availability of the take-back offer and the penetration rate in the EU states are examined into a five-level metrics. The results reveal that producers have extreme offers on the availability aspect and diverging information coverage in different countries. It is inferred that a producer’s attitude toward the product take-back affects the accessibility of their take-back offers, which can be explained by several economic concerns; however, different methods in future research is needed to further investigate the reasons behind different producers’ choices.

Since the last century, many wars and violations of Human Rights were direct reasons that set the pace to develop Human Rights laws, especially after the end of World War II and the holocausts associated with it. One of the critical Human Rights is that ‘to life’, relating to the right ‘to health’, hence the fundamental accessibility to healthcare services and products. Nonetheless, the last decades have witnessed a significant growth in pharmaceutical patents leading to increased drug prices. Overshoots in prices prohibit access to medicine. Disputes between States, pharmaceutical corporations, patients, and investors have occurred, some of which were not purely related to monetary aspects but also to Human Rights, such as the right to ‘access to medicine’. These disputes are controversial. The applicable legal regimes are patent laws (e.g., the TRIPS Agreement) and International Human Rights Law (IHRL) including the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), European Social Charter, and more. However, it is up to the courts to decide on whether to consider IHRL in the legal decision process. The question turns to whether they consider the two regimes to be intersecting or independent. This thesis tackles the area of intersection between patent law and the right to ‘access to medicine’ in cases of pandemics such as inter alia HIV/AIDS and COVID-19. It investigates whether the right to ‘access to medicine’ exists as a human right by law, to jump to examine whether solutions like Compulsory Licenses (CLs) and patent exceptions are suitable. Then it answers the question whether there should be defragmentation of laws or not. The work analyzes available caselaw to seek a balance between patent laws and the human right to ‘access to medicine’ during pandemics. Caselaw shows that the conflict makes the overlap of laws confusing and in need of determining the set of relevant provisions in the applicable norms. The question on defragmentation in answered by focusing on Section 5 of the TRIPS Agreement and some provisions in IHRL instruments. The thesis proposes a defragmentation of applicable laws that aids in looking at previous solutions to reach the sought balance, and it sheds the light to give recommendations. The work finally recommends being proactive, for times of pandemics like the COVID-19 outbreak, and working on the realization of a unified and harmonized EU patent law to keep up to the objective of delivering quality vaccines/antivirals, on time, within budget, and with supporting applicable laws.

No description available.

Recent research approaches in semantics based video content analysis require shot boundary detection as the first step to divide video sequences into sections. Furthermore, with the advances in networking and computing capability, efficient retrieval of multimedia data has become an important issue. Content-based retrieval technologies have been widely implemented to protect intellectual property rights (IPR). In addition, automatic recognition of highlights from videos is a fundamental and challenging problem for content-based indexing and retrieval applications. In this thesis, a paradigm is proposed to segment, retrieve and interpret digital videos. Five algorithms are presented to solve the video segmentation task. Firstly, a simple shot cut detection algorithm is designed for real-time implementation. Secondly, a systematic method is proposed for shot detection using content-based rules and FSM (finite state machine). Thirdly, the shot detection is implemented using local and global indicators. Fourthly, a context awareness approach is proposed to detect shot boundaries. Fifthly, a fuzzy logic method is implemented for shot detection. Furthermore, a novel analysis approach is presented for the detection of video copies. It is robust to complicated distortions and capable of locating the copy of segments inside original videos. Then, iv objects and events are extracted from MPEG Sequences for Video Highlights Indexing and Retrieval. Finally, a human fighting detection algorithm is proposed for movie annotation.

The central idea of this diploma thesis is perception of public space as something unnatural. Its existence and functioning is affected by its users. However, in society there are many interest groups, which have some requirements on public space and try to imprint theirs notions into it. One such attempt could be document Strategie rozvoje veřejných prostranství hl. m. Prahy/ návrh, which presents itself as revolutionary document of development, that its content should be in accordance with interests of community. But is it really so? Accepting the principles of social constructivism and using discourse analysis as main research method we should be able to say 1) how in this document is presented public space of Prague and its creation and 2) how visions of this document (its authors) are distinct form public discourse. The result of this diploma thesis should be to determine whether the content of document is really written in accordance with interests of inhabitants of Prague and if it's really so unique, as it says. Key words: City, development, discourse, discourse analysis, IPR, public space, Prague, social constructivism

Diese Arbeit hat die Frage zum Gegenstand, innerhalb welchen konzeptionellen Rahmens das internationale Privatrecht (IPR) sich angesichts moderner Entwicklungen bewegen sollte. Das „klassische“ IPR geht von Recht als einem zwangsläufig staatlich gesetzten Phänomen aus, weswegen sich internationalprivatrechtliche Systeme bislang nur innerhalb der Grenzen der jeweiligen nationalen Rechtssysteme denken ließen. Die Entwicklungen der letzten Jahrzehnte zeigen jedoch, dass die soziale Realität mehr und mehr staatlich-territorialen Festlegungen entwächst und sich stattdessen funktionell ausdifferenzierte Sektoren herausbilden, für die Landesgrenzen keine Relevanz mehr besitzen. In einer globalisierten Welt, so die Argumentation dieser Abhandlung, entsteht globaler Regulierungsbedarf außerhalb der traditionellen staatlichen Rechtssysteme. Um diesem Bedarf adäquat zu begegnen, muss das IPR als übergreifendes System gedacht werden, innerhalb dessen den einzelnen Staaten lediglich die Rolle unselbständiger Subsysteme zukommt. Die Auswirkungen dieser neuen Sichtweise werden anhand des Problems der Anwendung „fremden“ Rechts untersucht. / This thesis addresses the question of what conceptual framework is adequate for private international law in the light of modern developments. “Classic” private international law conceives of “the Law” as necessarily being issued by a state entity, as a consequence of which systems of private international law so far have been conceptually limited to the realm of national law systems. The developments of recent decades, however, show that social reality transcends governmental and territorial determinations with the creation of functionally differentiated sectors regardless of territorial boundaries. According to my argumentation, globalization entails global regulation necessities outside of the traditional national systems of law. In order to adequately meet the requirements of this new reality, private international law should be conceived of as an overarching system which comprises the national systems as mere subsystems. The consequences of this new perspective are being analyzed with regard to the problem of the application of "foreign" law.

L’avènement des multi-thérapies antirétrovirales a permis une réduction importante de la mortalité associée au VIH en induisant notamment la chute de la charge virale à moins de 50 copies/mL et une récupération progressive du nombre de lymphocytes T CD4+ (LT-CD4). Cependant, certains patients définis comme mauvais répondeurs immunologiques (MRI) ne parviennent pas à récupérer un taux de CD4 généralement considéré comme « protecteur » (>500cellules/µL). L’interleukine-7 (IL-7), cytokine essentielle à la thymopoïèse et à l’homéostasie lymphocytaire T, a été utilisée en étude clinique afin de restaurer et maintenir le taux de LT-CD4 chez les patients MRI. La première partie de mon travail de thèse visait à évaluer l’impact d’une telle thérapie sur le réservoir viral circulant. Dans l’essai clinique sur lequel nous avons travaillé (INSPIRE 3, Cytheris), des cycles d’administration d’IL-7 ont induit une augmentation significative du nombre de LT-CD4 et CD8 circulants, avec une expansion majoritaire des populations naïves et centrales mémoires. Nous avons montré qu’un cycle d’injections d’IL-7 induisait une augmentation significative de la quantité de cellules infectées circulantes 28 jours et 3 mois post-injection. Cependant, malgré l’accroissement de la fréquence de LT-CD4 infectés 28 jours post-injection, nous avons observé une diminution significative de la charge virale ADN par million de LT-CD4 chez la majorité des patients 3 mois après l’initiation de la thérapie, suggérant une élimination partielle de cellules infectées. Suite au second cycle d’injections, nous n’avons pas observé d’évolution de la quantité de cellules infectées circulantes ni de la fréquence de LT-CD4 infectés, suggérant un impact différent des 2 cycles d’injections sur la dynamique du réservoir viral périphérique. Enfin, certains patients ayant développé des anticorps neutralisants anti-IL-7 (Nab) suite au second cycle d’injections d’IL-7, nous avons cherché à identifier des facteurs prédictifs de l’apparition de ces anticorps ainsi que leurs conséquences physiologiques in vivo. Le seul paramètre caractérisant ces patients est l’amplitude de la reconstitution T-CD4 au cours du premier cycle d’injections d’IL-7. Il semble donc qu’une meilleure réponse à l’IL-7 ait pour conséquence de faciliter le développement de la réponse immune contre cette cytokine. Cependant, ces anticorps ne sont détectables que de façon transitoire chez les patients. De plus, nous avons observé une diminution significative, mais transitoire, de la prolifération des thymocytes chez les patients présentant des Nab, démontrant un impact fonctionnel de ces anticorps sur l’activité biologique de l’IL-7 endogène. L’injection systémique d’IL-7 induit la migration des cellules circulantes vers différents compartiments tissulaires lymphoïdes et non lymphoïdes. Dans une seconde partie de mon travail de thèse, j’ai étudié le pouvoir adjuvant de cette cytokine administrée localement par pulvérisation à la surface de la muqueuse vaginale. Dans le modèle macaque rhésus, nous avons mis en évidence une augmentation de la production d’un large spectre de chimiokines dans le chorion et l’épithélium vaginal des animaux 48 heures après l’administration vaginale d’IL-7. Cette surexpression de chimiokines s’accompagne d’une migration massive de LT-CD4, CD8, macrophages, cellules dendritiques et cellules NK dans cette muqueuse, suggérant l’augmentation de la vigilance immunologique. L’effet adjuvant de cette cytokine a été confirmé par l’analyse de la réponse humorale muqueuse de macaques vaccinés par pulvérisation vaginale d’antigènes 48h après l’administration du spray d’IL-7. Dans les lavages cervicovaginaux (CVL) des animaux traités à l’IL-7, nous avons mis en évidence des réponses spécifiques de type IgA et IgG plus rapides, plus fortes et plus durables que chez les animaux contrôles, démontrant la capacité de l’IL-7 à préparer la muqueuse vaginale à répondre à une stimulation antigénique locale. / Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy (HAART) has led to significant reduction of HIV-associated mortality by maintaining an undetectable viral load and inducing progressive CD4-T cell restoration. However, some patients, defined as poor immunological responders (PIR), fail to restore their CD4 counts to 500cells/µL during treatment, a threshold considered as the protective against AIDS related or non AIDS related malignancies, opportunistic infections and cardiovascular events. Interleukin-7 (IL-7), an essential cytokine for thymopoïesis and T cell homeostasis has been used in clinical trials aimed at restoring and maintaining CD4 counts in PIR patients. The first part of my thesis project aimed at assessing the impact of IL-7 therapy on circulating HIV reservoir. In the clinical study we worked on (INSPIRE 3, Cytheris), cycles of IL-7 injections led to a significant increase of the number of circulating CD4 and CD8 T-cells, with a predominance of naïve and central memory T cell expansion. We have shown that one cycle of IL-7 injections induced a significant increase in the number of circulating infected cells 28 days and 3 months post-injections. However, despite a significant increase in the frequency of infected CD4 T-cells 28 days post-injections, we observed a significant decrease of HIV-DNA load in CD4 T-cells in the majority of patients 3 months after the therapy initiation. These data suggest a partial elimination of HIV infected cells. After the second cycle of IL-7 injections, we did not observed any change in the number or frequency of circulating infected cells, suggesting a differential impact of the two IL-7 injection cycles on the dynamics of circulating HIV-reservoir. Finally, considering that some patients developed anti-IL-7 neutralizing antibodies (Nab) after the second cycle of IL-7 injections, we looked for predictive factors of this immunogenicity and analyzed its physiological consequences in vivo. The only parameter that distinguished Nab and non-Nab patients was the extent of CD4 T-cell reconstitution during the first cycle of therapy. This suggests that a better response to IL-7 also facilitates the development of auto-antibodies to the cytokine. However, these antibodies were only transiently detectable after the second cycle of therapy. Moreover, the appearance of Nab was associated with a significant but transient decrease of thymocyte proliferation, suggesting a functional impact of these antibodies on the endogenous IL-7 function. Systemic injection of IL-7 induces circulating T cells homing from the blood into lymphoid and non-lymphoid tissues. In the second part of my thesis project, I evaluated whether this cytokine could be used as an adjuvant when sprayed on the vaginal mucosa. Ten micrograms of IL-7 directly sprayed in the vaginal tract of rhesus monkeys induced, 48h after administration, the production of a large pattern of chemokines in the vaginal chorion and epithelium. This chemokine expression was accompanied by massive homing of CD4 and CD8-T cells, macrophages, dendritic cells and NK cells in the vaginal mucosa, suggesting an increased immunological vigilance. Finally, the adjuvant potential of this cytokine was confirmed by analyzing local humoral immune response after vaginal administration of antigens 48h following IL-7 spray. In cervicovaginal washes (CVL) of treated animals, we observed a faster, stronger and longer-lasting specific IgA and IgG response than in control animals, highlighting the capacity of IL-7 to prepare the vaginal mucosa response to local antigen stimulation.